


Bound and Compelled

by Seek_The_Mist



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: All the pairings listed have their focus before the threesome, Alternate Universe - Canon, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Brother/Brother Incest, Captive Prince Secret Santa, Consensual Underage Sex, Dubious Morality, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Getting Together, Light BDSM, M/M, Political Alliances, Roleplay, Rope Bondage, Sexual Experimentation, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:55:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28224231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seek_The_Mist/pseuds/Seek_The_Mist
Summary: In the same world that we know, all morphed differently, two brothers never knew family betrayal and war, but they still knew their royal duties.This is their story, growing up a little too close to comfort and then some. And it's the story of how Damianos of Akielos came into their lives all the same, but differently.According to their mother, Laurent was a little treasure of a boy. According to their father, Laurent was composed and malleable. Laurent was all of this, of course. He was also, unfortunately, a nightmare.[Written for the Captive Prince Secret Santa 2020]
Relationships: Auguste/Damen (Captive Prince), Auguste/Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince), Auguste/Laurent (Captive Prince), Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 95
Collections: Captive Prince Secret Santa 2020





	1. ~ 1 ~

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stillwaterseas (phoenixflight)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixflight/gifts).



> **Note 1** : If you haven't, read the tags and the warnings for this story. If you have, do it again now. And if you're still excited for it, please go ahead and enjoy!
> 
>  **Note 2** : In this universe, the Regent has never existed and will never exist.

  
  


According to their mother, Laurent was a little treasure of a boy. It was an inevitable conclusion for her, because Laurent revered her and was always overflowing with sweetness in the Queen’s presence.

According to their father, Laurent was composed and malleable. Such was his summary of the way Laurent always seemed content to shy away from too blatant attention and was easily satisfied by activities not high in the King’s priorities.

Laurent was all of this, of course. Affectionate, attentive, intellectual and scholarly. He was also, unfortunately, _a nightmare_ — prone to boredom and all the mischief that counterbalanced it, attention-seeking towards the few people he deemed worthy of his full dedication. And of course, vaguely egotistic, because the facets of himself he easily showed could be agreeable at a first glance, coming from a Prince. More often than not, Auguste felt like he was the only one to be burdened with the full truth, with what it meant to truly _know_ his little brother.

In Auguste’s early teens the situation had been manageable. Laurent was twelve years his junior, all blue eyes and baby softness that Auguste had been more than a little enamoured with. He could play the role of the all-powerful big brother and leave Laurent to their mother or the nannies when things got a bit too messy. Laurent would go with minimal whining, and would always have the same look of unabashed adoration when Auguste returned later in the day to spend more time with him. 

But children had the unfortunate habit of growing up, and Auguste should have paid more attention to the inane chattering of the ladies of the Court about their offspring. At six years old, Laurent was free of his nannies and completely handed over to a little army of preceptors — with a governess to tend to his less intellectual needs, of course. That didn’t make him less adorable, but the same sharp and receptive mind Auguste had felt so proud of when Laurent learnt to read and write before all other kids around his age in the Court was also the first source of trouble. Now graced with more bodily autonomy, discernment, and speech, Laurent was less easy to appease and far more prone to try and have his willful way regardless. 

At more than eighteen years old, Auguste was more inconvenienced by it than he had thought possible before. 

He had gotten his first Pet two years prior, as was customary. But of course, for propriety, he had taken over the contract of an older Pet from one of the high ranking generals, as a gift for his birthday. Olivier was almost ten years Auguste’s senior, lean and with heavy-hooded dark eyes that were very suggestive then they fluttered. Auguste had been a whole head shorter than him when they signed their first agreement, but in the two years and the growth spurt that followed, the situation rapidly tilted. Sex with Olivier had been plenty enlightening and Auguste hoped his status as Crown Prince would afford him some revisiting of their best intimate pastimes even after the new contract with one of the Lords had settled his first Pet off to a comfortable life. But nostalgia and habit aside, there was a pool of excitement in his stomach as the months to his birthday built up and he got to screen potential Pets closer to his age — more challenging and perfectly matched for the witty games of court — to sign a contract that would be rightfully his own. 

Symon had not fallen short of expectations and Auguste felt much less awkward in his skin to properly enjoy their companionship. With some years still left to go until his official coming of age as the heir of his father the King, Auguste was indeed very much inclined towards such enjoyments and looked forward to Symon waiting for him when he finished his lessons, his training, or even some particularly tedious council meetings. 

This was where the clashes started to appear, as the timing tended to perfectly coincide when Laurent instead expected to have some of Auguste’s attention. 

Even the most weirdly resourceful six-year-old was not impossible to evade, of course, if only for the fact that several places were not easily accessible to a child. However, that did not stop some particularly awkward occurrences in which Laurent just refused to accept his big brother was otherwise engaged.

“When are you going to be done?” Laurent would ask him, as Auguste tried to enjoy the enthusiastic warmth of Symon’s mouth in the rose gardens just before the Lords from the Barbin region were due to arrive for the day. And if Auguste had thought before that questions about diplomacy were the best douse for desire it had to think again because _this_ was definitely unbeatable.

“You’re always busy with Symon!” Laurent would complain, as he caught Auguste thrusting steadily into his Pet with one of the pillars of the stables. For all the work Auguste had been putting in luring one of the stable boys to join them, this was definitely not the kind of interruption that went with his plans.

“The young prince would be less spoiled if you indulged him less, your Highness,” Symon would sometimes remark, lounging seductively on one of the couches of Auguste’s quarters. He did the bare minimum of an effort to hide his annoyance at Auguste’s little brother — and for all the pleasure Auguste took from his smooth skin the quiver of his voice when he moaned, nothing made Symon less attractive than his arguments about having to treat Laurent more harshly.

Auguste refused to address this as one of the reasons why they went their separate ways in less than two years, but a little nudge at the back of his mind kept pressing to hopefully find a Pet that would not question the fact that Auguste’s little brother should indeed be cherished. 

His next Pet, Mathieu, turned out to be better at this than Auguste could ever have hoped. This was a particularly fortuitous occurrence, as Laurent at eight years old was starting to know his way in and around court in a resourceful manner, and Auguste’s twentieth year came with the heightened responsibilities of being a Crown Prince of age. Being the King’s right hand and independently taking over some matters of the state definitely did a number on his stress levels, and the time he could find to decompress in Mathieu’s arms was as reduced as it was sorely needed. 

“Your brother just needs some time to unwind and relax, you know how many Councils have been dedicated to the commercial deal, my Prince,” Auguste overheard Mathieu saying, as he dozed off in a surprisingly quiet afternoon that he had managed to spend for himself. His Pet had sounded remarkably calm, for someone who had been begging on this same bed just a little earlier. 

“But we could go riding together, and he could sleep afterwards all the same!” Laurent protested, but his tone was endearingly hushed as not to wake Auguste. “You could come too,” he added, begrudgingly magnanimous, and Auguste could feel the mattress rocking a bit as Laurent’s legs dangled at its side. He was sitting there all causally, talking with Mathieu, who was only covered by a silk sheet, and Auguste knew Laurent liked the way Auguste’s Pet talked to him like a peer, someone reasonable and worthy of a serious conversation. 

“That is a lovely proposition, Your Highness,” Mathieu replied, impeccably courteous even though Auguste could feel the smile in his tone. “But then, is riding the same as sitting in the Queen’s lap to have a story read to you?” the question followed, sounding genuine even though it was already remarkable that his Pet knew of this little pastime of Laurent, more carefully hidden now that he was trying to be more _grown-up_. 

“No…” Laurent murmured, sounding cross. A little pensive silence followed. “Is that why he always wants to have sex with you?” the question followed, clearly skeptical.

“It is pleasurable and intimate, different from a mother’s lap certainly,” Mathieu laughed a bit at his own words, though luckily for as exposed to the Veretian Court as Laurent could be the undertone of licentious conversation was likely lost to him. “But it does make a lot of things feel better, afterwards.”

“It just seems so... _boring_ , and convoluted, in the displays and during the festive nights.”

“Just like a dressage spectacle is different from a free galloping in the field, isn’t it, my prince?”

To this, Laurent only hummed lightly, sticking around the bedchamber a bit longer before taking his leave. After that, he seemed to try and be more mindful of Auguste’s space when Mathieu was involved — or at the very least less invading when his and Auguste’s plans did not exactly align. Auguste made a mental note of adding some significant benefits to Mathieu’s contract for its first renewal. 

Not that Mathieu’s ease and genuine enjoyment of helping to handle Laurent was the only reason to keep him around, of course.

In some licentious intercourses with Auguste before they formally agreed on a contract, he had shown off a knowledge of ropework more complex than Auguste had ever seen in the Veretian court — and that was saying something. Auguste had spent the best part of two weeks in the literal knots before he had demanded Mathieu teach him. 

It was a whole world away from the vapid display at Court. No suggestive silk ribbons ready to fall apart with a sharp tug, but leather and rope firmly knotted with the same efficiency Auguste would devote to the garments of his horse. Mathieu took it even better than he was able to give it — breathless choked sounds and perfect flexibility, always willing to go further and harder and to leave Auguste to admire the marks the day after. 

Plenty of things had gone from fun to boring before, but this one did not seem to turn tedious in his mind. Even thinking back at it, Auguste could say that his enjoyment was the most genuine.

The first time Auguste tied up Laurent, it was equally genuine but with a different drive to it.

Having turned nine years old a few years prior, Laurent seemed to be filled again with sudden bursts of energy that Auguste remembered with fondness from when he was a toddler. Only then they had been completely endearing, and easily resolved with half an hour of chasing a laughing, waddling kid around, before an exhausted nap. Now, with more vigor, more bodily autonomy, and more refinement, they came with extensive demands of Auguste’s time and attention — and though Laurent had now perfected his technique to find Auguste not _otherwise engaged_ , listening to convoluted games and witty discoveries or trivias from yet another book was not within Auguste’s multitasking capabilities when trying to stay on top of his responsibilities as Crown Prince. 

Today’s pick was, apparently, a lively reenactment of a play about pirates that Laurent had witnessed in the market outside of the palace walls — incidentally, not the most dangerous place, but one where Auguste wasn’t even sure Laurent had been supposed to be in the first place. 

Not that Auguste was particularly sentimental about the pillows of his couches being brutalised by a jumping little brother, or about the wild swinging of the heaving curtains at his windows, but there was a very important council meeting coming up the morning after and Guion’s curly cursive was already giving him enough of a headache. 

When he finally snapped, it was unplanned, as Laurent hung heavily in the curtain he had draped himself into while trying to convey the excitement of the kidnapping act of the actors. 

“You keep on like that, Laurent,” Auguste said, levelled as a warning, but not _irrational_ , “and I’ll be the one tying you up.” 

At that, Laurent went very still. It would have been amazing, if only it was the sheer power of Auguste’s older-brother authority. 

“Like you do with Mathieu?” Laurent asked, something too akin to curiosity in his voice. When Auguste shot him a cutting stare, as if to remind him what they discussed about _boundaries_ in no uncertain terms, Laurent rushed to add. “I just saw the marks! When we were all in the baths, some weeks ago. But that’s what it is, isn’t it?”

Auguste didn’t have a smooth deflection for that, apart from mentally cursing his little brother for being too clever for his own good. The frustration likely played a part in the decisions that followed. 

“Not like Mathieu,” Auguste got him from the desk, one eyebrow lifted. “Don't you want to know how those pirates would treat a little captive prince?”

Laurent very much did and it was written all over the gaping surprise on his face. “You’re just saying that because you want me to be quiet,” he murmured, averting his gaze.

“I’m saying it because it seems a good way to play together _and_ finish reading that document,” Auguste replied, fully straightforward in a way that in a Veretian court was much more appealing to both him and Laurent — much more intimate, and familiar — than any convoluted platitude would ever be. “It’s fine if you don’t want to, of course.”

With a little wrinkle of his nose, Laurent looked up at him again. “Well, it _could_ be fun...I think.”

A smile pulled at Auguste’s lips and he decided that taking a ten minute break to chase Laurent around his day quarters. This kidnapping business might as well be a believable one after all, or so he argued with himself. 

He was breathless with laughter, and Laurent was still giggling when Auguste hoisted him up and made a bit of a scene of manhandling him around before getting the rope out. It was one of the ones he used with Mathieu, obviously — Auguste did not actually own a collection of ropes for different purposes — but it was one of the softer ones. 

Despite their play-abduction before, Laurent went very still and very quiet when Auguste started to tie his hands, and then the whole length of his arms, behind his back. He had that kind of expression that often accompanied his attempt of resolving a particularly difficult exercise or riddle, and Auguste didn’t try to shake him out of it because ropework engrossed him in its own right. 

By the end of it, Laurent’s arms were stretched out behind his back, his shoulders smoothly rolled back to keep them straight as the ropes forced him too. The twists started from around Laurent’s hands, keeping the palms pressed together, and then criss-crossed higher, getting wider, all the way up the middle of Laurent’s biceps. From there, Auguste had closed off the final knot, but he had looped the rope around Laurent’s head to make him catch it between his teeth — no additional strain on Laurent’s neck, but they were playing at kidnapping and Auguste knew how much Laurent valued _coherence_ in pretending. 

Mathieu would have probably complained that it was too strained, but Laurent was more than ten years younger than Auguste’s pet and the flexibility of childhood had yet to abandon him. Like this, Laurent looked graceful and defiant all at the same time, with the twists of rope behind his back echoing the fastening of his jacket on the front.

“Very pretty,” Auguste murmured, in a small breaking of character just for the sake of praise. 

It was no big loss, considering how pleased Laurent looked at receiving it — though the self-satisfaction had a funny twist to it, with a rope pulling at the side of his lips. 

For the next hour and some, Auguste kept Laurent seated on a footrest, close to his desk, as he kept working in silence. Only occasionally, while changing ink or waiting for a page to dry, he would deliver some witty remark to his captive, just like a pirate would do. Laurent would hum eloquently from behind the rope in his mouth even though he could have just spit it out. 

At the beginning, Laurent was still fidgeting with restless energy and Auguste kept glancing over to him, too aware of his presence and of his comfort. Then they both got more engrossed in their game — Laurent settled down on his little cushioned stool, all tied up, while Auguste worked through his tasks more efficiently than he had been able to do in the last week. 

By the time Auguste was done with his work — _truly done_ , impressively — the sun had yet to go completely down and there was even some spare time before the call for dinner. They moved to the couch, play abandoned by the time Auguste reached out to pull the rope out of Laurent’s teeth, and Auguste took his time to undo the knots and answer Laurent’s questions about what he and Father were working on so hard, even though a lot of intricate politics were still lost on him. 

The quiet satisfaction of it was impossible to ignore. 

And so Auguste and Laurent found themselves a new game to engage in, at least once every fortnight or sometimes more often if the Court was particularly frustrating for either of them. 

They even had a little story that went with it, just because Laurent _loved_ stories. And the story of Prince Laurent, Admiral of the Royal Fleet, captured by Captain Auguste, known as the Stealing Magpie, was actually a pretty good story. Or more of an epic, considering that they had different variations and continuation of it as the months rolled into years — it was funny to finally understand how these intricate traditional tales came to be, with variations almost from every village in Vere you might visit. 

The new balance was more agreeable than Auguste would have thought if someone else had presented him the possibility. He would have thought it impossible, he and Laurent were too far apart in age and his little brother should by right be dear but not really _engaging_ for him — but Laurent was Laurent, and he had never been boring a day of his life, not even the very first ones were he could scarcely do anything but sleep and feed and occasionally whimper. It was not, of course, as if Auguste didn’t have other entertainments, between his duty and the politics of Court, sometimes interwoven with the double-edged plays with the Lords and Ladies. And he still had Mathieu, so hot and welcoming for their shared pleasure — but Mathieu had the kind of sharpness that made him the perfect Pet for a Crown Prince that required an adroit and impeccable ally for the business of the Kingdom alongside the one of the bedroom. He was not very good at stories, and genuine games — certainly not as good as Laurent.

More often than not, Auguste’s day quarters were their playground, since their games worked better exactly in the way they started. They were far from repetitive in their scenarios, and Auguste took a significant amount of pleasure in figuring out the best usage for every piece of furniture that he could aid himself with when binding Laurent. 

Tying him to his desk came to be one of their particular favourites. The built of the wooden frame was lean and finely decorated and looping rope firmly around it without it slipping required significant effort — but the match of smooth furniture and Laurent’s lithe figure dressed in excellent clothes more than made up for the work. That, and the fact that Auguste could concentrate more easily on addendum to trade treaties if Laurent’s hands poked out of the corner of the desk, there he stayed restrained in arms, legs and back. 

Inevitably, as Auguste honed his rope bounding skills with Mathieu and then applied them more creatively onto Laurent, it became evident that having Laurent completely dressed in the last Veretian fashion was less of a feature and more of a hindrance. After a first very strained attempt, accompanied by a sharp and suspicious ripping sound, Auguste would have thought to reconsider some aspects of the whole ordeal, if Laurent hadn’t jumped ahead, rope still tied around one of his wrists. 

“Can you take off my jacket? I’m sure the shirt won’t rip,” Laurent asked, turning around to display the lacing at his back like an offer. 

Auguste had only helped Laurent dress on occasion when he was very little, and for some reason he had never helped him divest. And yet there was an appreciable symmetry between undoing his jacket and then binding him back up into a totally different fashion. 

From there onwards, the idea that their games had a space only in Auguste’s day quarters began to slip. If it was not just an interruption of their routine with minimum perturbation, if it could take the time and preparation and aftermath of stripping, what stopped them from playing when they were out riding, or visiting Aquitart, or in any other situation in which having to plan for some brotherly recreation became part of the fun? 

The first time they played in Auguste’s bedroom was not planned, to be honest. It was hours past Laurent’s sleeptime, on the tail end of his eleventh birthday. After the first birthday, that was the birthday every Veretian child was meant to look forward to, as it meant being able to start sitting at the common table on some given important occasions and getting away from the lack of agency of childhood. Of course, once the milestone was reached, the sixteenth birthday was the next big affair, and then the twenty-first. Auguste, soon to turn twenty-three, wished he could tell Laurent to not be in such a rush — that grown-up life was not as much fun as he made it out to be in his mind — but it was of course a pointless exercise. Laurent was high-strung on excitement and had invaded Auguste’s bedroom to blabber off all the plans he had for the next five years of his life. 

“Aren’t you jumping a little ahead of yourself? You don’t even know if Aimeric would be up for it,” Auguste tried to actively engage in the overreaching plan of a cohort of young adults sworn to something not so clear. Laurent made it sound like a sort of lower-order of knights, with not so clear duties, but was surely excited about it.

“I’m not jumping ahead of anything!” Laurent protested, even while bouncing at the corner of Auguste’s bed, pale legs dangling out of his nightshirt. “And why wouldn’t he be up for it? It would be our duty, I’m the King’s second son and he’s also not the heir, we can guide the more subtle workings of the kingdom!”

In Auguste’s experience as the Crown Prince, in the shadow of his Father, the subtle workings of the kingdom were nowhere near as exciting as Laurent was psyching them up to be. But there was no purpose in bursting the bubble — Laurent did have some good ideas often and was studious enough to gather more from the books he much loved. He was likely to adjust his eagerness to reality on his own devices. 

So Auguste said the only thing this conversation called for.

“Maybe you could indeed,” he murmured, pitching his tone both lower and more distant at the same time as he stalked Laurent closer to one corner of the canopy. “And wouldn’t that make you a delightful bounty…”

Laurent got very still, eyes focusing in interest in a way Auguste recognised all too well. “I wouldn’t want my own worth to be so clear that one would think about posing a bounty.”

Auguste felt his lips pulling over a smile, looking down at Laurent even while they sat next to each other. “Of course you wouldn’t. But what kind of pirate would I be if I let some unknown shadow just trample all over my business? I worked out for the routes your little web of connections just dismantled…”

“Your business is likely a thievery against the interest of the kingdom, I’m sure several merchants could be persuaded to strike better deals.”

“So you don’t even admit to your scheming, I see…”

From there, the game devolved with the same ease and the same excitement that had long since stopped to amaze Auguste. It was their usual theatre, with the added adrenaline of having to come up with enough novelty to keep it interesting while running it close to its core. 

Laurent ended the evening of his birthday hanging from the wooden frame of Auguste’s canopy.

They had never tried this before, but Laurent had also never been quite as disrobed before. Bounding his wrists was usual, bounding his chest was not unheard of — but the heat of his skin under the thin fabric of his robe and the way it creased and slid under the knots was different. Laurent legs were naked, his feet equally bare, and that almost felt like tying up another person altogether. His ankles were much more slender than they appeared when Auguste had knotted them over his boots, on occasions — Auguste could not stop from crossing the rope higher, and higher still, the covering Laurent back up from where the lack of clothing was failing him. It felt more right to have him roped up all the way above his knees.

At that point there was way too much rope to go around, loose ends that could be crossed again. Auguste hadn’t meant to try a suspension, tonight, but he didn’t regret it. 

With the support coming from his chest and legs, having the canopy support Laurent as he dangled parallel to the floor was almost easy. And the soft sound of elated surprise that came from Laurent as he found himself at face height with a standing Auguste made him think that he could have done it before. 

What was certain was that they would do it again.

Thinking back at it years later, Auguste would think that maybe that night, among all others, was the one to cross an important threshold. Because that night Laurent was playing with him in the same bedroom Auguste fucked his Pets in. That night, Auguste had to start paying more close attention to Laurent’s body as it was, in its most raw and unrefined state. That night, the robe railing up and the threat of nakedness was an unspoken part of the game instead of being an inconsequential factor between brothers. And after that night, Laurent would sport the subtle mark of being tied hard and steady, of his own weight pressing into the constraints, and the private tangibility of it was beyond any obnoxious public display the Veretian court had to offer. 

A lot of the steps that followed were an indistinct blur in Auguste’s mind, things that happened because they were _bound_ to happen — and just like he told Laurent in his predicaments, sometimes you just have to accept what comes to you without questioning it.

Laurent’s restlessness certainly morphed as he approached his teenage years, and yet it remained fundamentally the same. He could still be soothed with attention, and some carefully applied focus in the form of something he just could not get away from. The ache in his joints from trying to grow into his own body were even easier to accommodate, as far Auguste was concerned — spreading oil on Laurent’s skin to make sure the rope marks didn’t chafe and massaging him in the spots of discomfort could go together like a charm. 

Nothing of Laurent growing up was supposed to influence their bond, not even as Auguste juggled it with the rising weight of the Kingdom on his shoulders following Father’s decision to delegate more stressful endeavours to a younger mind. If anything, it only made Laurent more apt to the nature of their games — Auguste now often recognised specific reference to real laws, commercial treaties and statutes in their fictional banter, and Laurent’s arguments sometimes were even more witty as his peers slowly caught up with him to try and play the game of Court. 

If asked, Auguste would have claimed that he wanted to have the ways they interacted with each other actually separated — that he wanted to be the source of familiar affection, the eldest son and Crown Prince, and Captain Auguste the Stealing Magpie as three distinct entities. Laurent could lean on his shoulder and let Auguste rub his sores away as he confided in him, but also come to him to detangle matters of state and politics that escaped him, all while hissing fake scathing remarks to each other while playing at bondage. It was easy, and easier still if separated.

But since Auguste didn’t want to relent on any of these aspects, the separation was among the many things that slipped away without him planning for it.

“Louis has been hiding in the gardens a lot, recently,” Laurent told Auguste one night, an apparent non sequitur from trying to make sense of the cartographic evolutions of the regions of Vere. He sat on the floor of the library beside Auguste even though there was plenty of space on other tables, tables less occupied by Auguste’s own books. It made Auguste feel as if he should have tied Laurent up at least a bit, by reflex. “And Remi always disappears around the same time, with some stupid excuse.”

“Do you think they’re plotting something?” Auguste asked, though with some doubt. Remi was four years older than Laurent but his family wasn’t particularly influential, and Louis was just a few months younger than Laurent but more apt to inane gossip than to actual politics. 

Laurent shook his head, with a low murmur as if he found the idea just as ridiculous. “I think Remi has been fingering him.”

There was nothing particularly vulgar or revolutionary about it, Auguste still remembered rather fondly how curiosity had lured him into the lap of an inconspicuous Palace’s guard when he had been roughly Louis’s age. But Laurent’s pensive tone still made him pause in his note taking. “And what about it?” 

Silence lingered a bit more as Laurent decided how to elaborate. “The Pet performances make it sound silly,” Laurent started, voicing an opinion that was definitely not news. “But does it feel good?”

Auguste started writing again, partially not to make Laurent too self conscious, partially because he was already used to explorative questions as his little brother mulled over these topics. “Potentially, yes. Men are also very lucky in that regard.”

“I knew you would say this.” Laurent’s nose wrinkled as if placed in front of a dichotomy that he could not disentangle. “I tried myself but it was dull and inconsequential. I don’t see how someone like Remi could bring more _potential_ into it.”

The remark was so uncharitable that Auguste could not stifle a laugh. “It does require some creativity in the habit. And a partner that could at least inspire you in the matter.”

“What has that to do with anything?” Laurent’s brow creased as if he was trying to ascertain if Auguste was trying to trick him.

“Let’s put it this way,” Auguste set his quill away and turned slightly towards Laurent. “You are perfectly capable of, for instance, rubbing the bend of your own knees, are you not?”

“...Yes?”

“Very well, then why do you often get goosebumps when I do it?”

“That’s just because it feels intense when you do it!” Laurent countered, as if it was a ridiculous question, and then caught himself, his frown changing angle. “...Oh.”

“Exactly,” Auguste confirmed. 

After that, Laurent went quietly back to his spread of maps and for that evening it was the end of it — even though he evidently kept mulling over the concept, and Auguste found himself wondering if he should worry about who Laurent might choose for his explorations. He was at that age, perfectly understandable, but he was also _the prince_. But Laurent knew it, and he was very likely to run anything through Auguste first, to get his opinions. So it was fine.

All things considered, it was also fine a couple of weeks later, when they were both so pent up after some long days of putting up an impeccable front with foreign dignitaries that Auguste himself had gone to Laurent’s chambers and dismissed his attendant. 

“You will give me the information I’m after,” Auguste hissed, feeling properly threatening in his made-up requirements of the evening. He pulled on the rope that kept Laurent’s arms stretched towards the corner of his own wardrobe, where the knot was tied over a prominent decorated pommel. 

“I told you already, I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Laurent protested, evidently trying to perfect his act of double concealment. Pretending to not know what he was pretending to know. The effort was already more impressive given the precarious balance of having a leg bent on itself, bound up so that the heel stayed close to the thigh. 

“You’re a liar, little prince.”

“I’m not even a prince!”

“A _bad_ liar,” Auguste stressed, feeling every inch the Stealing Magpie whose character he and Laurent had spent years refining. “I made hardened men tell me their life story, princeling. You’re not going to be such a challenge.”

Auguste had several swords and a hefty collection of knives for various purposes, and he knew how to use them extensively — but he would never unsheathe them against his little brother outside of a training ground. The letter opener in Auguste’s hand was little more of a stage prompt, but it served his purpose every time they wanted to play at this sort of confrontation. He tilted Laurent’s head up with the tip of the dulled blade pressing under his chin.

“I have nothing to say to you,” Laurent hissed, blue eyes staring daggers into Auguste’s even as he swayed subtly trying to keep his balance on just one foot for such a long time. 

Auguste flipped the letter opener in his hand and slid the handle along Laurent’s chest, forcing the laces of his nightshirt to fall more open in the front, hanging low from the tense line of Laurent’s raised arms. With the other hand, he traced the ropes that bound his bent leg and slowly traced the patches of naked skins between the crisscrossed knots. The higher he went towards the inner thigh, the softer the skin was — smooth to touch with a fingertip, giving under the arch of a nail. 

Laurent’s lips trembled slightly, and through the open shirt and his naked arms his skin tensed with goosebumps. The way the rest of Laurent’s face remained impassive felt like a challenge.

“I’m sure you’re already imagining insensate violence and the tale of your heroic resistance,” Auguste murmured, towering over him and keeping all the eye contact that Laurent stubbornly refused to break. “But you’re the type of fly I’ll catch with honey, princeling.”

There was nothing truly planned in the way Auguste spent the best part of the following half an hour teasing Laurent. It was just something that happened, mostly with the palm of his left hand over Laurent’s skin, starting from his dangling foot and then trailing up to his hips — over and over again until a shiver escaped Laurent, so Auguste flipped his hand over and ran over the tensed skin of Laurent’s hip bones again with the bumps of his knuckles. 

When Auguste rucked Laurent’s shirt up and went to caress his back, Laurent tried to thrash away. Another flip of the letter opener in Auguste’s hands, and the blade was back under Laurent’s chin, urging him to stillness to avoid pushing into the pressure. 

They kept staring at each other as Auguste blindly mapped all the spots that made Laurent’s body tense under his touch, from his back to his chest, all the way to his bound wrist, and then back again. And then he tracked his way in reverse, back to Laurent’s legs. 

All was under the intermittent accompaniment of Laurent’s spiteful remarks, vilifying whatever tactic Auguste thought he was using and stressing how much Auguste would get _nothing_ from him, apart whatever was coming to him as soon as Laurent freed himself. Auguste murmured inane threats in return — no one was coming to free this captive, no one even knew where he was, and Auguste _would_ get what he wanted. He also relished all the moments when Laurent’s voice broke despite his best efforts, cheeks burning slightly and nipples perking up if Auguste poked them a bit with the back of his letter opener. 

By the end of Auguste’s third downward journey, Laurent’s breath was laboured by more than the constrictions of his limbs, and his stiff cock poked the hem of the creased nightshirt. 

Auguste did nothing to hide the wicked satisfaction of his grin, even more so when Laurent glared at him as if he was on the verge of spitting in Auguste’s face. The heat and the tension between them when Auguste stepped away from Laurent and went to rummage in his bedside table was a hundred times more satisfying than any endless diplomatic negotiation going nowhere. 

“I was nowhere near the Capital in the last three months,” Laurent’s voice chased after him. “Think about where you caught me, I can’t have that information!”

“You’re stalling,” Auguste pointed out, stalking his way back to the cupboard with a little jar of ointment. “It doesn’t matter where you were, you have your sources. And even if you don’t, you’re going to give me an educated guess.”

Laurent was still making a great show of questioning Auguste’s judgment even as his eyes frantically tracked the way he uncapped the jar and picked up a generous dollop of ointment on his fingers. Behind the veils of their performance, Auguste knew Laurent all too well to not notice the interest — as if a new game was being presented to him, adding new variables to something he already enjoyed. 

“Still stalling,” Auguste notified him, and brought his slick fingers between Laurent’s legs.

A little outraged sound emerged from Laurent’s throat, and the attempt to reason with Auguste quickly swung back to berating him. He squirmed, of course, but the firm way he was tied to the cupboard only made him look like a helpless fish in a net — and the position forced taut buttocks far enough apart that Auguste had an easy line to rub from the front to the back. Easier still, when Laurent’s skin was all slick. 

If the redness on Laurent’s cheeks didn’t speak of excitement enough, the stiffness of his cock would have served the same purpose.

Auguste took his sweet time focusing his efforts at the rim of Laurent’s hole — getting it wet and frictionless, and enjoying every flutter of it around the tip of his fingers that always came in counter with the jumping clench of Laurent’s cheeks at the corner of Auguste’s hands. 

“You’re very sensitive, princeling,” Auguste teased, because unlike him the Stealing Magpie wouldn’t know it already. “You’re still in time to tell me everything I want to know.”

“I don’t have what you wa...ah!”

The first finger went in smoothly, with just the faintest resistance around Auguste’s second knuckle. 

Laurent’s eyes went a bit wide and he fell in a puzzled silence, even as his body reflexively clenched around Auguste’s finger. Auguste wiggled his finger a bit, deep inside, and Laurent’s breath jumped again, the resistance giving in a bit as if coaxed by curiosity. 

“What is it, princeling, the cat ate your tongue?”

“You’re a filthy animal and I will have your hands for this!”

“But you _do have_ my hands,” Auguste breathed on the side of Laurent’s face, his free hand running up along the span of Laurent’s back from underneath the nightshirt. “You know how to make it stop, just talk.”

“Fuck you,” Laurent spat out.

In another moment, Auguste would have to figure out where exactly Laurent had managed to pick up such an unbecoming Veretian expletive that was only used by peasants or worse. In this moment, being worse than a peasant in the rights of his pirate character, he only laughed. 

He fingered Laurent until his index could just slide in and out and Laurent’s breath shook with it. When Laurent went back to trying to persuade him about not having the information, Auguste worked on pushing his middle finger inside — slow and careful in a way that cracked a couple of moans out of Laurent. The resistance was more marked with two fingers inside, but there was too much ointment around for Laurent’s body to clench properly. By the time Auguste got to slide his fingers half out and then back in, the knob of his knuckles rubbing on Laurent’s soft rim every time, he went back to question Laurent, to stir him away from his tentative justifications. 

“I...ah...I don’t know.”

“Then you should have thought about it more carefully,” Auguste said, pressing his thumb lightly on the smooth space between Laurent’s balls and his hole. Laurent’s cock jumped with a mind on his own when Auguste curled his fingers inside and probed carefully for Laurent’s sweet spot. 

“There were merchants talking!” Laurent’s voice shivered as much as his body. “I heard them talking.”

“You might have to elaborate better.”

There was no way for Auguste to think he was the only one deeply invested in the scenario — not with how Laurent’s hips were squirming to accompany the thrust of his fingers as he still tried to spin up a believable story. 

Laurent’s whole body convulsed in a moaning wave when Auguste pressed inside him just right. He tried to squirm away reflexively but he was still standing on one leg and the knee bucked out with a mind of its own, sending Laurent back on Auguste’s fingers. His mouth was slack with a flushed stupor, his train of thought evidently lost as he stared up at Auguste.

“Come on, princeling,” Auguste murmured. He gave up on teasing Laurent’s skin between the ropes on his legs in favour of sliding up, all the way to Laurent’s twitching cock. 

It only took a persistent rub on the wet tip, nicely timed with the slow circles inside him, for Laurent to crack into a quivering, eye-watering orgasm. 

Auguste let him ride it out, until Laurent’s hips stopped trying to chase and escape his touch at the same time, and only the sweet background of Laurent’s heavy breathing remained. There was no real winding down, not with Auguste’s hand still wrapped around his cock and Auguste’s fingers knuckle-deep inside his ass. 

“How about you tell me the truth, now?” Auguste demanded, a subtle slide of his fingers out of Laurent’s ass with the underlying fake-threat that they will go back in.

Laurent’s forehead dropped on Auguste’s shoulder, exhausted, and his voice was still shivering as he tentatively outlined a new deliberation going on between the Guild of merchants and the head of the armigers — sounding remarkably true in its fictional fakeness. 

The true wind-down was much slower, but still in character because they both preferred it — with the Stealing Magpie admitting that the information was sufficient, _for now_ , and slowly undoing the entirety of the ropework around Laurent. Bringing him to bed was always a silent ordeal, but this time, for the first time, Auguste took care of cleaning the stickiness off himself and Laurent, and of rubbing off a bit of the ointment that was still slicking up the space between Laurent’s legs. Laurent, packed in a new nightshirt, was nodding in and out of sleep by the time Auguste went to take care of the budding bruises on his skin — not that cruel but undoubtedly there, like a honeycomb pressed in red on the softness of Laurent’s thigh.

“That was not that dull,” Laurent murmured against the pillow, voice a bit slurred by the impending slumber. 

Auguste smirked. “Willing to reconsider the...what was that... _inconsequential_ nature of the act?”

Laurent laughed, sounding way too entertained for his own good. 

In the many months that followed, they had several continuations of that same interrogation. 

Laurent made a very entertaining job of keeping his story perfectly straight even as they added more details and the full coherence of it at times threatened the suspension of disbelief of the whole ordeal. He also was a very quick study on the art of taking at least two fingers in his ass, if not three — so quick that Auguste had no doubt the previous disdain had made way for a new private past-time of his little brother. The privacy of it was maybe a bit more worth questioning — Laurent had taken even more after their mother, and the aristocratic cut of his traits was becoming more prominent as his growth spell continued — but Clement, Auguste’s newest pet, had told him Laurent had asked for some of his _personal toys_ to borrow, and that probably meant Laurent wasn’t giving his favours to any courtier. 

The travelling started shortly after Auguste’s twenty-fifth birthday. 

Unlike what Auguste had feared at some point in his late teens, Father hadn’t crystallised too badly into all of the worst parts of himself, with age. In no small part, this was probably due to the bad cold Mother had gotten in the previous winter — a harsh, cold season that she had spent mostly in bed. They had feared for her, as her family, and as Royals they had feared for the Queen with the rest of the Kingdom. But Mother had never been anything if not stubborn and relentless — not unlike Laurent, after all — and she had gotten better, steadily, to the point she was basically back to normal at the moment. But Pascal kept recommending frequent trips to the fresher air of the seas, in a more temperate climate like the one close to the border of Akielos. Auguste had seen the slow morphing of Father’s priorities on this, in what it had likely been the most striking proof that his parents’ marriage was a match good enough to elicit love: if before he had wanted the friction and the power struggle, he now wished to be able to spend more time with his wife where she needed to be. 

Leaving more power to Auguste was the first gradual move. Having a safe context to do this was the second. 

The irony of fate demanded that for some reason King Theomedes of Akielos seemed to be going through a very similar thought process — or at least similar enough that after decades of tensions, Vere and Akielos had found each other back at the round table of diplomacy. There had never been a formal war, no excessive level of violent hostility, but paving the way for an alliance was a completely different business. 

Given everyone’s commitment on the matter, though, it was the type of business that began to unfold, with meetings in Arles, in Marlas or Delpha in the border region, or in Ios. 

Auguste, as the Crown Prince almost ready to officially succeed his father, was always participating. Damianos, the legitimate son and heir of Theomedes, had recently come of age under Akielon tradition, and as such always had a spot at the political table.

It probably didn’t count for much of a defence that it took them almost a year to end up in bed together. 

Damianos of Akielos had swiftly insisted, at some point in the first week of the first meeting at the border, that Auguste drop most of the ceremony and just call him Damen. Personally, Auguste found that the nickname maimed the musicality of the prince’s name, and also that Auguste’s Veretian inflection in pronouncing it always elicited some sort of smirk on Damen's face — but on the other hand, it seemed to fit with Damen’s easygoing and self-assured nature much better, so Auguste complied. 

Well into his twentieth year of age, the Akielon Crown Prince was dazzling in more senses than one — handsome, athletic, and with a clever look in his eyes, he was the sun-kissed embodiment of those unbelievable heroes the epics of the old Artesian Empire sang of. 

“You’re the future of our countries,” Father had told him, on the battlements of Marlas as they waited for the historical arrival of the first Royal delegation of Akielos on Veretian soil in almost a century. “It would help immensely to shape the new treaties of alliance if you two were to get along. I know for a fact Theomedes keeps his son’s opinion in high regards.”

Duty only compelled Auguste to be nobly appropriate, but Damianos was one of the most excellent sparring partners Auguste had ever found in his life, and was also in possession of a sarcastic wit that ignited without missing a beat in the most hilarious situations. Getting along with him was almost infuriatingly _easy_. 

Maybe King Theomedes’s _high regard_ would be influenced by the notion of his son fucking his royal brother of Vere. But Auguste didn’t plan to ask and by the time it happened he was too caught up in the tension between them to care.

In his defence, flimsy as it might sound, he was not the one to make the first move on their mutual attraction. One late afternoon in the armory, Auguste was unlocking the gated display with the blades that were his and Father’s, and had been his grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s before them, just to show them to Damen who had conveyed a proper appreciation for the Veretian variations on the art of swordsmanship. 

“Are you sure about the balance of this one? The gilded handle is a bit excessive in my opinion, unless it’s more ceremonial than anything after all,” Damen pointed out, his dark skin almost golden under the oblique rays of sun that slid through the high windows. Be it military, literary or mundane context, his Veretian was more fluent than Auguste’s Akielon, there was no denying it.

“You have very little knowledge of Veretian ceremonial swords if you think this would pass muster,” Auguste teased him, flipping his grip to pass Damen the sword so he could test the balancing issue for himself. “Perhaps if arrangements progress far enough, I might be able to show you the treasury in Arles, one day.”

“I would like that,” Damen murmured, picking up the sword and tilting his hand sideways to feel the weight. His eyes were pensive and intent on the hilt, until he lifted his head up to stare at Auguste with a sudden focus. “You’re right. It’s balanced.”

Damen lifted his hand and pressed the sword flat on Auguste’s chest. Forcing half a step backwards with the advantage of surprise was enough to crowd Auguste against the solid stone of the wall. Auguste had barely opened his mouth to say something when Damen closed the distance between them and caught Auguste’s lips with the same swift competency he displayed on the sparring grounds. 

Obviously, Damen was an excellent kisser. Auguste would have been more frustrated by his own assessment if he weren’t reaping the benefits of the fact firsthand. He kissed just like he fought, intensely but patiently, and with a single-minded attention that somehow encompassed both his personal goal and the analysis of his counterpart. Auguste looped an arm around Damen’s outrageously wide shoulders and dragged him even closer, just to get immediately rewarded by the slide of Damen’s tongue along the roof of his mouth. 

They took their time to work through all the sexual attraction that had been building up for days between them, hiding in the penumbra and overly aware of any occasional steps passing by the hallway as if there was something forbidden about what they were doing. 

By the time Damen reached between them to fiddle with the lacings of Auguste’s trousers, Auguste’s cock was already tensing the fabric from underneath and the frantic brush of Damen’s fingers was enough to make Auguste hiss. 

“How can your clothes be so complicated? Everyone knows Veretians are shameless in bed,” Damen protested, his lips pressing deliciously on the space behind Auguste’s ear. 

“That we are,” Auguste confirmed, smirking. “That doesn’t mean you don’t have to work for it.”

“Oh, I’ll work for it, trust me,” Damen hissed, rocking his own hard cock on Auguste’s thigh — definitely less constrained in his excitement by his Akielon garments. He lifted his head to stare into Auguste’s eyes. “Undo your lacings for me.”

There was something intense and demanding in Damen’s eyes that could only be defined as _regal_. For all Auguste’s experiences, he had never slept with _a peer_ , before — someone who could convey command without the artifice of a game. The novelty of it, and the way his cock twitched in anticipation under Damen’s stare, was worthy of his compliance. 

Damen followed the proceedings with unconcealed eagerness, grasping at the hem of the fabric to drag it all the way down Auguste’s thighs as soon as most of the constrictions were gone. 

“Like what you see?” Auguste whispered, as Damen’s eyes remained trained on his exposed erection. The suggestiveness devolved into a hiss as soon as Damen wrapped a hand around his cock. It was Damen’s dominant hand and Auguste could feel the strength and the training calluses on it against his sensitive skin. 

“Yes, I do,” Damen smirked back, grasping firmly at one of Auguste’s cheeks with his free hand before dropping onto his knees in front of him. 

As far as displays of appreciation went, Damen’s hot breath against the tip of Auguste’s cock was surely high in Auguste’s favourites. A murmur of encouragement from his part was all it took for Damen’s tongue to dart out and lick in a leisurely circle. 

Kneeling at Auguste’s knees to suck his cock did nothing to diminish Damen’s charm — quite the opposite, actually, given how delicious it was for Auguste to grasp at Damen’s shoulders to keep himself steady, and how intensely possessive the slow knead of his ass by Damen’s fingers was in return. 

For all his blatant competency and self-assurance, however, there was something almost tentative in the working of Damen’s mouth when he tried to slide Auguste’s cock properly inside.

“You’re surprisingly sloppy,” Auguste murmured, as he gently grasped behind Damen’s neck to guide the tilt of it to a better angle. 

Damen emerged with a slick sound, casting him a look upwards. “Just lacking practice. Are you complaining?”

“Absolutely not,” Auguste smirked. “I’m actually quite surprised, you look like you could get all the practice in the world and then some.”

Damen snorted softly, kissing at the low of Auguste’s stomach in a way that made his cock rub maddeningly at the side of Damen’s jaw. “I can, but not at this. I’m a prince, in case you have forgotten.”

Auguste huffed a half moan, curling his fingers in the gentle twists of Damen’s black hair. “I hardly see what it has to do with sucking a cock.”

Damen’s left eyebrow shot up as if Auguste was being purposefully dense. “It’s inappropriate for my status, and none of my bed partners would mean to disrespect me.”

“Akielons,” Auguste rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, before staring back down at Damen. “Apparently it has never been inappropriate for _my_ status. Do you want me to show you?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Damen exhaled, almost cutting off Auguste before he could finish the sentence. 

With a small chuckle, Auguste followed him down on the floor. Getting rid of whatever looped fabric pretended to clothe Damen was all too easy — though Auguste could not deny a second of hesitancy when facing Damen’s cock.

“Well, damn,” he commented, between admiration and envy, but he still sunk between the spread of Damen’s legs to show him how one does suck a cock _just right_. 

Damen welcomed Auguste’s efforts rather vocally — with a healthy addition of Veretian expletives that surely spoke wonders about his proficiency in the language, and some additional Akielon ones that Auguste would have to investigate later on. Admittedly, it had been quite some time since Auguste had sucked a cock so well endowed, but for all of Damen’s tentativeness in performing the act he was surely familiar with the good etiquette of receiving it. He pulled at Auguste’s hair just enough to make his presence and his pleasure known, but never thrust up into Auguste’s mouth more than what was manageable. 

“Are you paying attention, Damen?” Auguste rasped out, wetly, the question morphed by the press of his own tongue on Damen’s cock. 

“I am, fuck, yes, I am,” Damen blabbered, and reached out to pull Auguste’s knee, dragging him closer on the floor. “Let me do it too.”

Both of them were too old to curl around each other on the floor and suck each other’s cock in a weird form of competitive reciprocity, but that didn’t stop them from doing it. 

Damen was definitely a very quick study in the matter of pleasure, Auguste had to admit, and it was no wonder that a five year age difference still made him an even match in sex as he had been in sparring practice. He was giving, enthusiastic, and very open about his appreciation — with his head on Damen’s thigh and Damen’s cock down his throat Auguste was steadily distracted from whatever discomfort the floor called for. 

He would have regretted it more once they were both satisfied — for the stickiness and the mess of their clothes and most likely of Auguste’s hair — be it not for Damen’s good-natured satisfaction, tained with an almost giddiness that in some aspects resembled Laurent’s after a very well executed mischief. 

Without doubt, some of the servants must have suspected some sort of love play when Auguste and Damen — separately and with care to exit the armoury at different times — made a hasty way off to their rooms in the fort. Looking at himself in a hallway mirror as he passed it, Auguste himself had to admit he looked as well-fucked as he felt. But this was Vere, and no one would truly question another person’s pleasure, let alone their Crown Prince’s. 

Four months later, the diplomatic encounter in Delpha — or Delfeur, for the Veretians — was more of a success than Auguste could have hoped for such a contested territory. But it was part of the reason to have a meeting there, and relaxing the border between the two Kingdoms by way of commercial treaties would also ease the friction between the people settled in that region. Unfortunately, the negotiations involved were so intense that he and Damen had to stick to a strictly official approach to each other — at least until the very last night, after the banquet was done and everyone was too drunk to care, when it was Auguste’s turn to corner Damen in an alcove and making sure their appreciation of each other hadn’t faded in the meantime. They were once again too old to rub so dry and frantic against each other, but with Damen’s mouth on his neck and Auguste’s fingers clawing at the fullness of Damen’s buttocks, neither of them could properly care for propriety. 

Things moved steadily from that point onwards, and it wasn’t even eight months before the Veretian Royal Family received an invitation to the Palace of Ios, capital of Akielos. 

As the alliance had yet to be formalised — and it would rightfully take at least one more year, assuming talks proceeded at the same speed — Auguste would lead the delegation as the Crown Prince, and Mother would accompany him as the reigning Queen of Vere. Conversely, Father would stay behind in Arles with Laurent. The arrangement would of course discourage any foul play, even just from third parties, and it was discussed in a Council meeting which the whole Royal Family attended. 

The fact that they had been all in agreement didn’t mean that Laurent wasn’t profoundly disgruntled by the whole situation. Laurent’s restlessness over Auguste’s absence was generally unavoidable, and while being fourteen years old quenched some of Laurent’s whimsical nature, it counterbalanced with a different type of hecticness. Making sure to keep their meaningful time together when Auguste was at the Palace did not counterbalance this particular instance of frustration, however. Auguste suspected that a strong part of it had to do with him and Mother travelling to Ios in one of the flagships of the Royal fleet. 

When he said as much, during his last evening in Vere, Laurent had at least the decency to look castigated by the exposure of the truth. 

“I’ve never been on a ship of the fleet,” Laurent admitted, dangling his feet off the edge of Auguste’s bed. When he turned again towards Auguste, though, there was a wicked light in his eyes. “Wouldn’t it be fun to play in one of the cabins? We could pretend it’s the captain’s quarters.”

Trying to build a habit for Laurent to be honest during their conversations meant that Auguste, in turn, could not really deflect the reality of the picture in his mind. “I thought about it,” Auguste said, sitting down next to Laurent on the bed. “And it’s a fun enough fantasy, but I don’t think you would like the reality of it. I’ve been on a ship before, and if you think the night quarters at Acquitart are small, I don’t want to know what you’ll think of the cabins.”

“I wouldn’t complain, I promise!” Laurent piped up, as if it was only a matter of convincing Auguste to just drag him along on the trip. 

“Not even with Mother next door? It’s all wood and thin walls.” 

At this, Laurent actually frowned, as if recognising a point that would actually put his fantasy in jeopardy.

“We’ll visit the fleet in another moment,” Auguste promised, reaching sideways to undo the lace that held the canopy curtain on one corner. When he spoke again, his tone was purposefully lower, familiar to the both of them. “Now give me your wrists.”

Laurent offered them forward in a heartbeat, and that gesture alone spread satisfaction deep in Auguste’s bones. “I thought you had to leave early tomorrow.”

“Not that early.”

Laurent hummed in recognition and lowered his head, taking a deep breath in and exhaling it slowly as if to put himself in the mindset — but far from protesting against the turn of the event, if the flush that creeped up his neck was anything to go by. There would be no play struggle and no great theatrical scathing conversations, tonight, because Auguste had taken the canopy lace. The knots were soft as Auguste bound Laurent’s wrists on top of each other and secured them in place, with a little mischievous grin over closing off the work with a frilly bow. They had a whole scenario for this — one of the many derivatives of their main story — in which the Prince had to be somewhat compliant with the pirate's whims, because the Stealing Magpie was actually hiding him from a coup that would have taken his life otherwise. 

Auguste slid off the bed and turned to face Laurent, bent lightly over him with his wrists still gripped by the knot. Laurent’s lips wavered, tempted to say something, but he decided to leave the opening act to Auguste. 

When Auguste pushed him backwards, Laurent fell easy on the mattress, with a little hiccupping sigh. His eyes were bright and anticipatory as he looked up at Auguste.

“You’ll have to be very quiet, princeling,” Auguste whispered, guiding Laurent’s wrists to press them over his head as he climbed on top of him. “Unless you want my crew to hear you.”

Laurent was very quiet as they played. His stubbornness made him very good at it, though his body squirmed and shivered wildly in Auguste’s grip. Auguste cherished every moment Laurent cracked up in a whimpering moan, hiding his face to try and smother it. 

The day after, as the royal delegation was sent off with warm wishes on the great stairs of the palace, Laurent was less sulking in his reproach for being left behind and Auguste himself felt less nervous for the long travel and even longer political plays that waited for him in Akielos. 

However, there was an unfulfilled restlessness that crawled under Auguste’s skin as the scenery changed. He stood on the bridge and tried to consider his mood, as the white cliffs for which southern Akielos was famous towered over him, gleaming of the light that reflected away from the quiet sea. It happened sometimes, especially when they played games that saw Laurent’s character more sweetly compliant. The subtle sense of _unfulfillment_ would go away on its own if they could play some more — though Laurent was often in the mood for more adventurous scenarios and that would create some friction of intent at times — but Auguste had to go to another country now, and thus his yearning just had to accompany him.

Luckily, white cliffs and polished marble construction were not the only thing that awaited, awe-worthy, in Akielos. 

Damianos of Akielos was on the docks when they landed, dazzling in the contrast of dark skin and heavy white fabric of his formal wear, with the royal red of his stole hanging elegantly off his shoulders. If possible, he had grown even more solid in his build since the last time they saw each other — his curls were certainly longer — and so close to the capital of his kingdom the confident power of his stance shone true. 

Be it Auguste’s mood or Damen’s attractiveness, this time they didn’t last a day.

When Auguste was summoned to Damianos-Exalted’s rooms right after the banquets, and the guards left at Damen’s swift gesture after announcing him, he knew the fruits and bread and cheese that accompanied bottles of alcohol on the low table were only a feeble pretense.

Still, he let Damen pour him a glass and gave a look to the impressive proportions of the room — so different from the heavy decors of Vere, all clean cuts and hard marble carefully arranged in shades of colours. The balcony faced towards the sea and the sounds of the courts were far away. 

Without bothering to sit down, Auguste picked up the glass that was left for him and took a generous sip. It was prodigiously strong and probably deserved more exploration — but not in this very moment. 

He put the glass down and began to undo the lacing of his own jacket.

“Strip.”

Damen didn’t have to be prompted twice.

They fucked five times that night, and valiantly attempted a sixth try even though sleep kept grasping at their conscience. 

Damen let Auguste have him first, for which Auguste was grateful. He had already known that Damen had the body and the attitude of a warrior, but wrestling naked in the sheets just to pin him down and fuck into him was a totally different experience. He kept Damen’s right leg on his shoulder, heavy and muscular, and kept him spread wide to have the full view of his cock sinking deep — deeper, all the way in — and started to move before Damen could ask for it.

Regardless, Damen asked for plenty of things afterwards — boldly and repeatedly — and for how much Auguste liked to muse on Akielon _prudishness_ , he had to admit Damen was outrageously _creative_ in bed. That, and he knew how to use that thick cock of his — taking his sweet time to ease it inside Auguste and grasping at his hair to make Auguste’s back arched _just so_. Auguste’s teeth clattered in mindless pleasure by the end of it, and still he wanted more. 

They didn’t have this much free time for the following days, but they still managed to put their efforts to work with enough frequency that Auguste’s body never quite felt _not fucked_.

It was a good feeling, and a good diplomatic exchange.

“You and the Akielon prince seem rather _close_ to each other,” Queen Hennike commented, all casual, as they stood together on the bridge of the flagship on their departure day. She was barely looking at him but her left eyebrow was elegantly raised. 

For as good as Auguste was in keeping care of his dalliances with Damen private, escaping Mother’s notice was unsurprisingly a whole other level of difficulty. 

“We get along,” Auguste replied, willing himself to not feel tense about any judgement that might follow.

“That, I gathered,” Queen Hennike countered, without missing a bit. There was enough humour in her dry tone that Auguste let himself relax — knowing it was not going to be a problem, let alone one he would have to discuss with Father.

A little more than six months afterwards, the Royal Family of Vere extended their invitation to the Royal Family of Akielos for a visit in Arles. 

From the arrangements, it was supposed to be a long stay, and there was hope from both parties that the groundwork for the historical treaties would be completed in the meantime. That, and from what Auguste gathered from his private correspondence with the Akielon prince, Damen was rather hoping to escape the scorching heat of the summer in Ios by camping in the more temperate north-west region of the Veretian capital.

Auguste was looking forward to the visit, possibly more than he had envisioned for himself. Laurent, of course, was too perceptive not to be curious about it in a way that went beyond the novelty that awaited. 

“But what is he _like_?” Laurent asked, as they were off riding in the countryside roughly a week before the delegation's arrival.

“Haven’t we talked about this already?” They had, at great lengths, to the point that Auguste knew it to be just a rhetorical question. Laurent would press on until he got an answer that he deemed satisfactory. “A very competent warrior and statesman, observing him is a nice way to appreciate the different upbringing of the heir in a different Kingdom.”

“You like him, right?” Laurent pressed on, smoothly speeding up his horse to a more firm trot.

“I do, he’s very intelligent and quick-witted.”

Laurent hesitated for a second, switching the reins in just one hand and looking insistently forward. “Do you think he will like _me_?”

Auguste suppressed a smirk. “If you don’t actively try to drive him crazy, why not?”

Given how Auguste knew him, Damen was all too kind in his nature not to be genuinely nice to Auguste's little brother — and if that were not to be the case, of course, Auguste would be careful to reconsider his liaison with the Akielon prince in a way that would not cause a diplomatic incident in the process.

Luckily, the outcome on Damen’s side was completely unsurprising, with Damen’s captivating manners easing the situation up even before Auguste could properly introduce Laurent as his little brother. It was evident that Laurent spurred Damen’s interest, but that was something that Auguste wouldn’t blame Laurent for — Auguste himself had found the prospect of meeting Damen’s older brother Kastor quite interesting. Unlike Kastor, however, Laurent was not a barely concealed asshole, and it was therefore almost endearing to see Damen realise that Laurent was not too young to have a worthy head attached to his lovely neck. 

Rather more surprising was realising the effect that Damen had on Laurent.

Auguste had witnessed their first impression, in which Laurent did an excellent job of not gaping and keeping his impeccable manners as a Prince of Vere even as his eyes climbed all the way up Damen’s figure and lingered persistently on his face. There was nothing surprising about the whole ordeal — Damianos was _unfairly_ attractive and charming even at the first glance.

Beyond the first glance, however, Laurent’s fascination seemed to morph into a persistent interest that Auguste had never quite seen in him before, save of course when directed towards Auguste himself. From the very first days, it mostly manifested itself into helpful offers to accompany Damen where he needed to go, or in being a delightful host to show him nice corners of the Palace that Auguste happened to know Laurent favoured himself. 

Apart from these niceties, however, the beginning of Damen and Theomedes’s stay in the Veretian capital was too packed with all the usual opening acts of politics and diplomacy for a proper observation of the phenomenon. Auguste himself struggled to get any personal exchange with Damianos, save from an overtly _educational_ trip to the bathing rooms — just to prove a point over Akielos not having the exclusive privilege of baths, and to get Damen to wash his hair after everything that came in between the architectural wonders. 

But it was still enough for Auguste to notice.

Even if he hadn’t, Laurent’s _mood_ ended up revealing itself not even four days in, when he snuck into Auguste’s bed late at night — squirming close to Auguste’s side and obviously not inclined to leave him to his sleep. He had done it before, even quite frequently in a period around his seventh year of age, but the fidgeting quality of his shoulders when Auguste wrapped an arm around it made it abundantly clear that Laurent was not there seeking consolation from nightmares.

Sighing in the dark, Auguste slid his arm from Laurent’s shoulders to his waist, pulling him in closer to his side. 

Laurent snuffled his face into Auguste’s clavicles and his leg looped around Auguste’s thigh unprompted. From the hardness that poked his side, Auguste rapidly gathered that there would be little to no purpose to conjure up a specific scenario — not with the darkness encompassing them, bringing any play that they could ever engage in to life simultaneously, tainted with the mutable fabric of a dream conceived too close to morning.

“Did you bring the oil?” Auguste whispered, with his face on Laurent’s hair. 

Laurent, almost feverish with warm pent-up energy, murmured something unintelligible as Auguste creased the fabric of Laurent’s nightshirt away and caressed Laurent’s legs up to his ass. The warmth felt even more vivid, there, and when Auguste kneaded at the naked buttocks the source of this much restlessness became quickly evident. 

“Mmhn, you’re already wet,” Auguste murmured in appreciation, curling his middle finger in a smooth line down the crack of Laurent’s ass. He didn’t even have to stop, to thrust it in. “Don’t worry, little princeling,” he added, as Laurent let out a choked helpless moan, “I’ll make it better.”

That he did, thoroughly, until Laurent clung to him madly with arms and legs — shivering around three fingers and the welcome torment of Auguste’s mouth on his nipples. 

Maybe, Auguste considered once Laurent was once again clothed and finally asleep next to him, little Laurent had a _crush_. 

That would surely make the rest of the Akielon visit even more interesting than expected.

  
  



	2. ~2~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here we go with the second and last part.
> 
> Beware: the POV change (enter Damen's view), outrageous length, 300% more obscene content than the first part, incesty threesomes as a cherry on top. 
> 
> But if you've come this far I suppose this will be exactly your thing.
> 
> Happy holidays again, especially to my lovely Secret Santa recipient, and I hope you're having a wonderful time!

  
  


For most of Damen’s childhood, _Veretian_ had been a word charged with any sort of disdain. 

If pointed towards an actual person of the Kingdom of Vere, the adjective needed to be eloquent enough to say it all. Alternatively, one could lash out to any given person with the same approach, and encompass the vapid narcissism, debauchery, and untrustworthiness of it all. 

_Very Veretian of you. He might as well be Veretian. This would be worthy of a Veretian._

Damen would have probably felt the whole narrative more strongly if it hadn’t been for Kastor making it an overwhelming part of his identity. Since Kastor was too persistent about it, after his childhood years spent blindly parroting him in search for Kastor's approval Damen ended up detaching from the concept altogether as a sort of teenage reproachfulness. 

In retrospect, Kastor’s virulence had probably a lot to do with Veretian views on children born out of wedlock, but Damen’s little protest primed Damen for the moment when King Aleron’s first letter arrived and Theomedes took a marked turn in his own foreign policy.

“Exalted, you can’t be considering this!” Kastor protested, all too vocally even for a meeting of restricted attendance, only among the most trusted. 

Theomedes did not like being questioned in his authority, especially when he had already made abundantly clear that he was not looking for advice on the matter. His withering look could have been the end of the reply, but instead he elaborated further. “Not only am I considering it, but I have already communicated my decision to you, in case the fact escaped your notice,” Theomedes said, looking straight at his first-born son. “There is a lineage dispute fast approaching in Vask, and Patras just signed a commercial deal with Vere. These talks will come to our advantage, and it is my job as your King to have the vision for the future you’re evidently lacking.”

Kastor looked sour at this, more than castigated, and Damen could guess the reason even as he stayed silent. The vision for the future was a point that Lady Hypermenestra had been insisting upon in the last years. But Damen knew that she was not doing it to question the line of succession that saw him as the heir, even though she was Kastor’s mother. 

So Akielos replied to the Veretian offer for diplomatic talks. 

Damen’s willingness to engage with the possibility of an alliance — and Nikandros’s approval of the political move, which counted for a lot since he was likely to become the new Kyros of Delpha — did not mean he knew what to expect from the negotiations. 

Even without ascribing to Kastor’s rhetoric, in which the whole Veretian Royal Family was the rightful head of a pit of snakes masquerading as a state, King Aleron was known to have a cunning edge to his patience. Regardless of the intel on her recent sickness, Queen Hennike was apparently recovered enough to have an active part in this business, and everyone knew better than to underestimate a Kemptian princess that had spent almost thirty years in Vere. Prince Auguste was older than Damen himself, and he was rumored to have played a very strong part in the new commercial deals with Patras. 

So Damen knew to be alert and ready to respond to the possibility of plans changing quickly and a hidden agenda that needed to be uncovered. 

Then it rapidly became apparent that the diplomatic effort was real, and also that Auguste of Vere appealed to all of Damen’s tastes. 

It wasn’t only his blond hair, fair skin and deep blue eyes, of course — even though Nikandros had mocked him recurrently and with great glee about it. He was a trained warrior and an impressive swordsman, and every inch what a Crown Prince ready to succeed to his King at any given moment should be. If he was a bit manipulative at times, Damen would not deny it only added to his charms — even if that meant the snake analogy had a foundation. 

Ending up in bed with him had been as inevitable as the tide rising in the sea, and from the very start Damen had been too far gone to regret it.

The Veretian visit to Ios had detailed several shapes of the new alliance, especially sailing rights in the sea and tariffs on most of the key goods that commonly crossed the border. The Akielon visit to Arles would tackle the heavy detail of the border issues in terms of territory, right of patrolling and jurisdiction. Theomedes was under the impression that this meeting could make or break the alliance in its nascent state, and Damen was inclined to agree. Therefore, they arranged a long diplomatic stay for Damen to be able to tackle all issues, all while Theomedes would break his visit in the middle to go to the border regions in King Aleron’s company and then come back. 

Many aspects of this moment called for the nervous tension that pervaded Damen’s bones, but part of the anticipation was inevitably about seeing Auguste again. 

He had thought, in length, about their many _explorations_ of each other’s bodies in Ios, and he had no qualms admitting how many ideas he was ready to bring forward. 

Arguably, this could be a liability for the negotiations — falling off Auguste’s good side would surely be a tragedy in this context — but Damen was more than confident that his abilities in bed counted more as an asset than anything.

The royal palace of Arles was the best expression of Veretian architecture the country had to offer, and no amount of detailed reproductions in books could have prepared Damen for the impact of tall towers, stained glazed windows and high ceilings when seen in person. 

Among these many preoccupations, the thought of Auguste’s little brother had barely brushed Damen’s thoughts in the days prior to his arrival in Arles. He had already met the Veretian King and Queen, both in possession of interesting personalities and more attractiveness than was fair to bestow upon a single family. The second son, the young prince, had been little more of a passing curiosity — mostly elicited by the fact that Auguste would easily refer to him in conversations. For some reason, knowing that he was markedly younger than Auguste, Damen’s mind had imagined him as a child, and in some inane fantasies he was ready to play games with the prince in order to secure further approval from Auguste.

The reality was inevitably, but pleasantly, different.

King Aleron and Prince Auguste had come down the imposing stairs that led to the main entrance of the Palace, to welcome Damianos and his father to their capital. As they were accompanied through the open doorway, the place fully decorated with flowers and lit in every corner with candles, Damen was still distracted by the warm impression that Auguste’s cheek at left on the sides of his face, where he had leaned over to greet him. 

At the centre of the red carpet that split towards yet more high-winding flight of stairs, in the great hall of the Palace, Queen Hennike was waiting with a young man that bore a striking resemblance to her. 

Laurent of Vere was not a child. He was surely past his tenth year of age, though he must not have been older than sixteen. In some regards, he was truly the diminutive version of Auguste that Damen had imagined — made even more slender by an ongoing growth spurt, with the same cut of his jaw, and an impeccable posture — but his hair was even finer and blonder and his eyes were cerulean instead of blue as they lingered on Damen. Auguste was also more difficult to read, whereas the intensity of Laurent’s gaze suggested to Damen that he was probably more anticipated of a presence than Laurent had been for him until ten minutes before.

Laurent’s eyes kept following him through the welcoming reception of the evening, and even though that might have been a byproduct of Damen having been seated between the two brothers, the amount of attempted conversations Laurent made spoke of a personal curiosity. 

Just like that, and with the same sense of inevitability, Damen found himself in Arles with not one, but two Veretian princes to figure out in their native environment. 

“Three of our Councilmen are going to approach you to give you a tour of our Corridor of the Audiences,” Laurent piped up one morning, his smooth and formal Veretian almost a bit rushed as he pushed the news forward. “Would you like me to accompany you instead?”

Slightly taken aback, Damen’s first question was not the most pertinent to the whole situation, “What is in the Corridor of the Audiences?” 

“A diplomatic history of Vere, basically,” Laurent replied, standing next to the table where Damen was wrapping up his breakfast even though his status would have allowed him to sit at his leisure. “The Kings and Queens before my father, maps and treaties and statutes. Worthy for a noble guest to see, I admit.”

“And why should you accompany me in place of the men of your Council?”

“Because they are boring,” Laurent blurted out, though his expression remained perfectly aristocratic. “I’m confident I can make our history more entertaining, I am well-versed and better read than most of them.”

Smirking was the most Damen could do to avoid outright laughter. “Are you also confident you won’t cause an internal diplomatic incident in the process?”

The skeptical lift of Laurent’s left eyebrow screamed _Auguste_ exactly in the way Damen was hoping to see. “I’m their prince. As such I’m closer to your status, Prince Damianos, and I would like the honour.” 

Damen put down the napkin, and got up. “Very well, then, the honour would be mine.”

The combination of Laurent’s sharp capacity for wit and his theatrical way of narrating history made the following hours more entertaining than Damen could have ever expected.

“I don’t have this many anecdotes for Akielon history and royalty,” Damen admitted.

Laurent’s smile was extremely pleased with himself — and once again the interested tilt of his head was a stark echo of Auguste’s mannerisms. “I think I can work on that, another time.”

Laurent was true to his promise some days later, while showing Damen the extensive library of the Palace — a double-layered maze of decorated wood and shielded lights that the young Prince was remarkably confident in navigating. When he was done showing off an impressive knowledge of cartography, they planned another meeting to play _Ai Poleis_ together — since Laurent could get a board for the Akielon strategic game somewhere in the Palace. For some reason, Laurent seemed even more delighted when Damen positively destroyed him in several rematches.

“You’re an impressive tactician, Your Highness,” Laurent said, toying with the piece that he had once again forsaken to Damen’s last move. “Would you teach me to play better?”

There was always a good reason for spending more time together, and Laurent would always make sure to have a new offer at the end of every encounter to keep Damen entertained once again, once more.

Damen was not oblivious to Laurent’s _interest_ in him, to the way it surpassed the borders of being a welcoming host and landed into a different type of eagerness. Damen had had an abundant share of propositions in his life, and Laurent's calculated persistence had a flavour of Auguste's own approach that made impossible for Damen to brush it off. Also, he had been young as Laurent was before, not so long ago — as it turned out, the age difference between he and Laurent was almost the same that Damen had with Auguste, and Damen was absolutely positive he would have tried to get Auguste’s attention even if he had met him before turning fifteen years old himself. The most flattering aspect was, inevitably, the evidence that Laurent seemed to have a reserved and self-reliant approach to the rest of the court — politically savvy and aristocratically friendly — but Damen still felt special in being the object of such earnest behaviour.

He could have told himself he was only indulging Laurent, but he didn’t. Because he wasn’t.

Despite his best efforts of just separating the matter at hand to help discernment, Damen could not deny that a significant part of the allure stirred of being exposed to _both_ Auguste and Laurent. Seen together, especially when observed at a careful distance, the two brothers were uniquely captivating — similar traits but different build, any small difference in their appearance jumping out to the eye, their expressions mirroring each other’s as a sign of familiar exposure just like the intimate understanding they shared appeared too intimate to be reproduced with anyone else. 

It didn’t seem like one could get full grasp on Auguste without knowing Laurent, and vice versa. Damen caught himself wanting more grasp than he sensibly should. 

Not entertaining himself with Auguste in the meantime would have probably lessened the feeling of being helplessly intertwined with the princes of Vere, but that wasn’t an option Damen was inclined to take. 

Auguste in Arles — his birthplace, the place he grew up in, the place he was most used to — was even more comfortable in his steps than usual. This was probably what Auguste had meant when he had told Damen about looking forward to visiting Ios. 

In the Akielon capital, Damen had taken full advantage not only of his own rooms — where he had fucked Auguste in any possible configuration, so that now every corner reminded Damen of him if needed — but also of everything and everyone he filled his routine with. He had enjoyed having Auguste open his mouth for him and accepting a drop of _chalis_ under his tongue, and then complying with the demands for _more_ and _harder_ several times over as they fucked through the night. He had also enjoyed calling upon Lykaios and admiring Auguste’s stricken expression as she pressed his cock between her soft breasts and licked the tip of it as she rocked on her heels for his pleasure, eyes downcast. 

Now, Auguste seemed to be on a mission to exchange the favour and display everything that the Veretian capital had to offer. Damen got to sit through late night sexual spectacles more elaborate than he could have imagined from the rumors, his cock shamefully hard in his clothes, and also let Auguste show him the use of all his favourite sex toys — all so masterfully crafted that Damen had to rethink his idea that they couldn’t add much to sex as it was. On a couple of occasions, Auguste’s paramour — his _Pet_ — joined them in bed, and Damen had to admit the mixture of skillfulness, forward attitude and independent initiative were as alluring, if different, from the smooth submissiveness of those trained in the Pleasure Gardens of Ios. 

It should have kept Damen too occupied to truly think about Laurent too, but it didn’t — and on too many occasions he caught himself wondering if the similarities between the two brothers extended also to the matters of pleasure. 

Sometimes he thought about bringing up the matter of his interactions with Laurent, to discuss the merit and the implications of them with Auguste, but there was a peculiar balance in this as well — in the smirk with which Auguste seemed to be aware, but silent, of Laurent’s bursts of propositions, while Laurent did his best to keep any of the plans he set up with Damen free of intruders and prying eyes. Veretians were very strong on secretive arrangements with layers of deceptions, even when completely unnecessary. A part of Damen insisted that if he were to approach everything at the light of the day, he would just break the rhythm of this dance. And he didn’t want that if it meant the risk of losing it.

As it often happened in Damen’s experience, the pace of change got more rushed after something apparently innocuous. In this case, it was yet another of Laurent’s propositions, a couple of weeks into Damen’s stay in Arles.

“There is a fire festival in the countryside, right outside the city walls,” Laurent piped up with this when Damen had just turned into a corridor by himself, after a long council meeting. “It’s quite peculiar, would you like to see it with me?”

The more Damen indulged him, the less Laurent seemed to mind the formalities about approaching each other. The slipping formality of his Veretian was partially Damen’s responsibility, since he often took liberties in addressing Laurent in these private endeavours of them, but it was nonetheless amusing. “Will I find it related to the midsummer festivities from Aegina that we talked about the other week?”

“Most likely,” Laurent replied without missing a beat, subtly smug about the continuity of it all.

Damen felt himself smiling, stopping in the middle of the corridor to properly look at the young prince. “Very well, if you tell me the exact date I’m sure I can tell my men to communicate with yours to organise a joint retinue for the occasion as we venture outside.”

Laurent, in one of his rare displays of impropriety, all but huffed at the prospect. His sky-blue eyes were gleaming with mischief when he looked up at Damen. “I have a more interesting idea.”

That was how Damen found himself sneaking out of his own chambers in the west wing of the Palace, escaping the notice of any Akielon or Veretian guard by following the steps of the second heir to the Veretian throne through the inner passages usually reserved for the servants.

“Your brother will challenge me to duel over this, Laurent.”

“Not necessarily, but maybe yes, for the show.” Laurent shrugged, quick and silent in a path that he was too comfortable in. This was not likely to be his first adventure of this sort. “And in any case, he would first have to catch us. Which is not going to happen because he’s busy with an inner council meeting and you told him that you were going to take the opportunity to retire early tonight, didn’t you?”

Damen did, because those were the first directives of Laurent’s big scheme. He sighed. “But we’re going to be on the outskirts of Arles. Words might get to the Palace that their young prince is roaming the streets.”

“It won’t,” Laurent countered, extruding that same composed confidence that Auguste often applied with ease. If it was an alluring trait in the Crown Prince, it was deceptively captivating also in his younger teenage brother. “I’m very good with disguises, you know?”

“What are you going to be disguised as? I sincerely doubt that the people around my own capital would not recognise me easily”

“That’s because you’re very...distinctive,” Laurent rebutted, looking at him from the top down in a way that made Damen even more aware of their difference in build and appearance. “This is not Ios, so they don’t know you. They just have to make some easy assumptions about me.”

The nature of these assumptions became quickly evident as they exited through the gardens and Laurent fished several additional pieces of fabric and jewellery from a bundle strategically hidden in one of the bushes. With a silken scarf looped around his head and mussing his hair out, he already looked more exotic than high nobility. With the addition of a sapphire earring hanging from just one of his lobes, it was even more than that — Damen would have to be careful that no one tried to catch Laurent’s eye and favour, once they exited the outer walls. 

“Won’t you gather more attention upon yourself by doing this?” Damen could not help but ask, when he became quickly evident that even the first people they crossed would linger over Laurent’s figure with their eyes. 

“A different kind of attention, just like the assumptions,” Laurent smirked, and looped an arm around Damen’s to hang heavily off it, his cheek leaning against Damen’s arm. “This is Vere, Damianos. You’re the kind of man that should have a pet.”

The thought alone ignited something deep and twisting in Damen’s stomach, as they walked the cobbled streets at the warm light of torches, heading over the gentle hill that was supposed to be one of the best viewing points for the fire festival. The image of Laurent in place of every pet Damen had seen perform or had slept with himself refused to leave Damen’s mind all the way there.

It didn’t help that Laurent carried his pet disguise to disconcerting levels — his posture and expressions morphed towards something not only more approachable, but more _inviting_ , and his language colloquial and teasing as people called out to them with the same ease he replied to. 

“How often have you done this?” Damen whispered, as they found their place under a tree. The gentle slope of the hill cleared out towards the valley and the fire lit up the night in a conceited orange glow. 

“Never, actually,” Laurent countered, smiling mischievously as if the answer was supposed to be obvious. “You need a master, to be a pet.” 

Damen was his master, tonight. The heat in his body spread even wider. 

The last strand of the situation was how unbearably _Veretian_ the whole situation was — relaxed and facetious among farmers and artisans, and yet licentious by culture. As Laurent sat against his side and dragged him into an animated conversation about the origins of fire-related festivities and the peculiarities of Veretian beacons, people around them had no qualms about making good use of the set up to sweeten their time together. There were several couples around, but also groups as big as five people for what Damen could distinguish in the penumbra — no performance but a genuine enjoyment of each other that made Damen even more aware of the warm weight of Laurent’s body nested against his own. 

Laurent’s expression, at a first glance, appeared unperturbed, but the pace of his speech betrayed a sort of youthful excitement that Damen felt all too close to something he could understand. When he glanced over to Damen, and found himself caught because Damen was looking back, his words stuttered slightly, eyes diverting in a flustered rush.

This, Damen realised in the second of silence that caught them, was as far as Laurent would get in terms of seduction. The inexperience and uncertainty of it marked a new layer of difference between him and his older brother. The thought of being one of the few, if not the only, with such awareness was more than elating.

Before Laurent could catch himself and dispel the silence with a resumed chattering, Damen leaned in and kissed the side of Laurent’s neck. 

The cut of his hair, which was shorter than Auguste’s in Veretian fashion as Laurent was not yet eighteen, exposed his skin in a smooth line from the shirt’s high collar to the shell of his ear. There was the subtle beat of a drum coming from the distance, and as Damen pressed his lips higher and higher he felt as if he could feel Laurent’s heartbeat through the vibration of the sound. 

“Damianos…” Laurent exhaled, uneven, after a long suspension of his breath, while Damen’s lips caught the side of his ear. 

The earring dangled, with fake innocence, beside Damen’s chin. Damen opened his mouth and ran his tongue behind the shell of Laurent’s ear. The shiver that followed was more delicious than he could have imagined. 

“This is a common part of the celebrations, isn’t it?” Damen asked, without drawing back. As if to prove his point, a feminine moan of pleasure rose away from the murmuring background noise — followed by the giggles of two other girls from the same group. 

Laurent’s skin tensed in goosebumps under the caress of Damen’s breath. “That’s what you would do...with your pet.” 

The mental picture seemed as exciting for Laurent as it was for Damen, and very far from a request to back off. So Damen kissed his skin again, tongue and lips alike, before closing his mouth on the tip of Laurent’s ear just to make him feel the edge of teeth. He did it again, and then once more, every time moving a little bit downwards down Laurent’s neck. By the end of it, Laurent was breathing heavily and his grip was tight on Damen’s arm by his own side — as if Laurent was holding on to him, young and sensitive and getting something he must have wanted for a while, now. 

“I think I would do something more...with my pet,” Damen said, low and private, as he lifted his head.

Even in the dark, Laurent’s expression seemed captivated by the narrative, the flush almost clear to imagine. It was easy for Damen to untangle his arm and loop it around Laurent’s shoulders. He dragged him close, and closer still, until Laurent had to grasp at Damen for balance. Settling Laurent in his lap at that point was trivial — and Laurent's vague flush even more evident when he settled down on Damen’s thighs. 

Damen lured him closer with a gentle touch at the side of Laurent’s jaw, but when their foreheads touched he went no further. Laurent’s eyes were even wider now, and there was a sort of exhilarated giddiness in his breath — a part of Damen was flattered by such an unfiltered display from someone who was evidently on track to match Auguste’s inscrutable attitude. 

The moment of stillness lingered between them like a question. When they kissed, Damen was almost sure it was because Laurent had closed the distance between them. 

Laurent kissed with the sweet uncertainty of a small bird testing its wings against the wind, naturally inclined even to the unfamiliar act. But he was also very receptive to everything offered to him. Whatever lead Damen took to show him what could be done, Laurent would reflect it back after a while with renewed confidence. It was impossible not to wonder how few people got to enjoy him like this, and how lucky Damen got to be one of the firsts. 

It had been a while since the last time kissing someone thoroughly had been the main part of the entertainment, but Damen had always liked it. He kissed Laurent thoroughly, until they were both confident in it — no clattering of teeth, no tension, just a slow slide of tongues and lips, gentle biting and persistent sucking. Laurent’s eyes were often closed, fluttering in abandon just like his body trembled over Damen’s legs. If Damen had any doubt this was exactly what Laurent had been hoping for in the last weeks, the grip of Laurent’s arms around his shoulders would have made it abundantly clear. He closed his eyes too, every once in a while, just to bask in the feeling of Laurent’s confidence and preferences in the act building up, but Laurent’s Veretian composure unravelling would be a pity to not witness up close. 

Despite the passion of his kisses, Laurent tended to keep his hands out of the way, clasping lightly at the fabric behind Damen’s back at times. At first, Damen thought it was a sign to keep it slow, but when he gave in to the temptation and slid a hand along Laurent’s back, instead of keeping his grip steady just on his hips, Laurent hummed and squirmed in a way that could only be an invitation. Veretians always wore too much fabric, even in the summer, which was a pity, but Laurent seemed to be perfectly responsive to the pressure of Damen’s hands through it. Damen made himself known over Laurent’s back, and his side, and his thighs, sometimes going back to kissing his neck instead of his lips just to feel Laurent’s laboured breathing more strongly. 

Even with all of his apparent inexperience, Laurent’s excitement was unperturbed by the presence of people around him — which Damen was much more attuned to, a forbidden sense of _impropriety_ that made him even more persistent in his touches. The partial distraction was probably the reason he failed to recognise just _how_ excited Laurent was. Damen caressed up his clothed thigh with one hand, digging his fingers in the inside of it with small circular motions, and kept him close by the small of his back when Laurent reflexively tried to squirm away.

“Someone is eager,” Damen whispered in Laurent’s ear, pressing the palm of his hand in the middle of Laurent’s legs, where his hardness was hot and unmistakable even in the constriction of his trousers. 

When Damen flickered his tongue against the sapphire earring, Laurent’s body jumped under his touch.

“Ah!” 

Laurent’s moan was loud as if Damen had ripped it out of him, his hips jerking of their own volition to grind against the touch. When Damen turned his head to face him, Laurent’s lips were slack and trembling, sweetly overwhelmed. 

“Ah...sorry…” Laurent murmured, as if Damen could be disappointed of having pushed him into an orgasm. 

“Not at all,” Damen kissed his lips again, caressing Laurent’s body more gently until Laurent let himself go on Damen’s thighs once again. “I wish to bring you somewhere private.”

Laurent’s breath weavered against his lips, a new rush of excitement at the proposition. “An inn?” 

“Back to the palace, I would say, before we push our luck too far,” not to mention Damen suspected the sapphire earring was the extent of their trading currency at the moment, and he was scarcely inclined to let it go — as if their game would stop, without it.

Laurent swallowed his own hesitant breath, somehow even more flustered at the prospect of a longer wait for the same purpose. When he got up to his feet, his stance was awkward in a way that made Damen feel unbelievably smug.

They abandoned the fires and the festivities behind them, made invisible and irrelevant by the back and forth of the uncaring crowd around them as Laurent guided them back inside the Palace through his secret paths. Past the gardens, there was something more nervous about his steps — anticipatory and increasingly more prudent as the inner corridors led them closer to Damen’s chambers.

“Having second thoughts?” Damen asked, casually. The corridor was narrow in a way that avoided putting Laurent on the spot in the process.

Laurent glanced back at him, lips thinning in several layers of embarrassment more clear than Damen had ever seen him display. “I just don’t want to get caught,” he whispered, as if there was a prize ahead that could not be missed.

Damen smirked, and went forward in careful silence.

Behind the closed doors of Damen’s room, the threat of discovery was dispelled by the unperturbed nightly quiet of the corridors outside. Still, Laurent failed to settle down completely, though his fidgeting around as Damen lit up the candles in the room to make light had a different quality from the single-minded rush in the corridor. 

“Why don’t you sit on the couch?” Damen proposed, amicably, with a tilt of his head towards the couch in the day quarters of his chambers, perfectly befitting a foreign prince. They could always start where they left off, he reasoned, if Laurent was second guessing himself.

“I thought you wanted to take me to bed,” Laurent countered, always defying any banal expectation. His eyes were not so steady in looking at Damen, but he was bold when he pressed forward. “And my clothes are...uncomfortable.”

Damen laughed, with no derision. “I bet they are.” He took some step forwards towards the night quarters, turning around to sit at the foot of the bed. “Veretian clothing is also needlessly complicated. Why don’t you strip?”

Among the many advantages of being back in his rooms was that Laurent’s subtle flush and his eyes widening every time he heard something he found alluring were more obvious. That, and the fact that no one else was there to witness yet another Veretian prince disrobing for Damen. 

“Am I to be the only one?” Laurent asked, after a brief fiddling with the many laces of his shirt. He let it float down to the floor, leaving the white skin of his chest to reflect the candlelight. 

Interestingly enough, the tone of the question suggested that the answer could be _yes_. A not so hidden part of Damen would have liked it — getting the rest of that young and lithe body bared for his eyes while he himself stayed covered — but he had seen how Laurent had looked at him, often. He got his much less elaborated shirt out of the tall waist of his trousers, probably more adequate for a riding trip than for royalty in the court, and pulled the fabric over his head. 

Laurent’s low hum as he stared at Damen’s naked chest was even better than Damen had been expecting. 

“Come here,” Damen invited. “I’ll take your boots off.”

As everything else that Laurent wore, the tall boots were tight around his shins — a perfect outline for Laurent’s slender legs, and also a challenge to remove without assistance. Not that Damen minded assisting, if it meant grasping at Laurent’s knee and pulling hard with the other hand. Laurent swayed — once, and then again with the other foot — but something in the uncompromising treatment made him look away from Damen’s eyes when he shuffled barefoot in front of him. 

Laurent’s trousers were dark, but Damen was sure the suggestion of wetness in the front was not just his imagination — not with the haste that Laurent applied in removing them when he caught Damen staring. 

Laurent was nice and proportionate, with the taut shoulders of a training swordsman and the firm thighs of an excellent horseman. Being young and being very Veretian were one and the same when it came to his reaction under Damen’s observation — shuffling subtly in awkwardness even as his cock twitched between his legs. 

“Get on the bed,” Damen said — because he wanted him there, but he also wanted to cut him some slack as Damen himself finished stripping.

As Laurent went to comply, his eyes glued on Damen’s lower half. “Do you truly wrestle naked? In Akielos?”

“Yes,” Damen confirmed, dropping his shoes and trousers in quick succession. “But that’s for sports, it’s different.” 

It would certainly be inappropriate, to be half-hard as he was, in the training grounds. Still, Damen had significantly fewer qualms about standing open and naked and let Laurent catalogue his body — fewer still, given how thickly Laurent exhaled as his eyes lingered between Damen’s legs. 

In a half distracted gesture, Laurent reached up to slide the sapphire earring away. 

“Why don’t you keep it on?” Damen prompted, getting closer to the bed again.

Half-seated on the duvet of Damen’s bed, Laurent stared up at him intently, exhaling again. “Like a pet?”

“Like a pet.”

When Laurent let himself fall down against the mattress, the earring abandoned next to his face, Damen was quick to reach over to him and resume everything they had paused on the hill. 

Kissing now was more intense, not only because Laurent seemed eager to rehearse anything Damen had taught him to do with his tongue. Every place their bodies brushed was naked skin and rising heat, and Laurent shivered easily but not demandingly, angling towards him like a sunflower reacting to the sun. Damen started by toying just with his earring, since the presence and the reminder of it was enough to fill up Laurent’s cock in anticipation, but then he let his hand roam away from it, just to prove how ready Laurent’s body was to follow the touch with goosebumps. The answer was _very_ , and he somehow seemed better adjusted to laying on the bed, even more so when Damen rolled on top of him, than he had been straddling his lap to make out. 

With a steady movement, Damen brushed all over Laurent’s chest, making his abdominal muscles jump under the stimulation. His nipples were stiff when Damen caressed upwards again, and when he flicked at them with the side of his finger, Laurent’s whole back arched. 

“Yes,” Laurent moaned, encouragingly.

Given his hesitancy with kisses, the ease here was an interesting development. 

“Yes?” Damen prompted, sliding his fingers around to pinch Laurent’s nipple, repeatedly. “Is this how you like it?”

Laurent moaned again, the back of his head pressing against the duvet, and then he nodded. It was a nice confirmation that did not bear the impact of a sudden discovery. Figuring out Veretian habits in life and sex was always an adventure, as Damen had already been learning for a while with Auguste. 

“What else?” 

“With your mouth, also.” 

Damen smirked and bent down to apply his mouth exactly where his hand had been, moving his fingers to torment the other side of Laurent’s chest. With his face so close, every hiccup of Laurent’s breath resonated right on his skin, as did the drumming of his heart. 

Even now, however, Laurent was not touching him, even though his fingers twitched and clenched against his palms as they laid abandoned beside his head. Maybe Laurent was way too used to being serviced, even though Damen knew he was more than a year too young to own a Pet on his own right. Or maybe, it was the Pet thing in itself — with the earring dangling at every toss and turn of his head as Damen stiffened up and licked both of his nipples. 

“As a master,” Damen whispered, sliding away from Laurent’s nipples only to kiss his way down his stomach, “I would want you nice and open.”

Laurent made a choked sound of excitement, squirming lightly underneath Damen. “Yes, please...I like that also.” 

Which was another interesting admission, and even if Laurent hadn’t provided it, the way his cock twitched in excitement against Damen’s body was a telling sign of its own. 

Damen rose up a bit, seating himself down on the bed next to Laurent, and then grasped at Laurent’s right leg to flip him over. Laurent gasped at the ease of the movement, but didn’t exactly struggle as his belly landed across Damen’s thigh. “And this is how I would do it,” Damen added, sliding his hand in a long line over Laurent’s back. The touch alone was enough to make Laurent arch again, which was more than promising. “Just lay down, mh?”

Laurent let his elbow slide away from underneath himself and turned his head to the side to look at Damen — the side that left the earring exposed, incidentally. “Like this?”

“Yes,” Damen confirmed, settling down properly with a hand combing gently through Laurent’s short hair. “You know that you can touch me too, right?”

Among all possible things, that flushed Laurent’s cheek. He stretched his arms blindly, until Damen could feel the grasp on the knee over which he had splayed Laurent, the fingers of the other hand brushing tentatively against Damen’s naked side. There was no reason to be so taken by the gesture, but Laurent appeared to be — and Damen was also.

When Damen bent down again, it was to kiss the arch of Laurent’s spine — which had to be sensitive, even more than the rest of him in general, given how he murmured under the soft touch. He kept his left hand playing with Laurent’s hair, for his own enjoyment, but also ran a hand up from Laurent’s knee to the inside of his thigh. It was different like this — having Laurent’s weight over him, digging his fingers in — because the warmth of their bodies mingled and heightened, skin against skin. 

That was how Damen got to enjoy the increasing pace of Laurent’s breathing as Damen’s mouth inched closer and closer to his buttocks. When he glanced up, fingers digging in the softness of Laurent’s thigh to spread it, Laurent’s eyes were even wider than they first kissed earlier — so it seemed Damen could teach him something more about kissing after all. 

There was nothing sudden about it, not given how Damen took his time to sigh over Laurent’s spread cheeks just to see his hole twitch, receptive. Still, Laurent sounded shocked when Damen pressed his tongue against it and then started to lick him as lowly as he had been caressing him. 

Laurent moaned once, and then again, his cock fully hard and pressed between his stomach and Damen’s thigh. He squirmed vaguely, trying to get more friction, but Damen pressed more firmly on his nape to suggest him to stay down, and accommodated his movement only with circular motions of his tongue. When the tip of Damen’s tongue caught at his rim and flickered at it, ready to slide inside, Laurent jumped away from it — sounding too excited for it to be a protest, but definitely surprised by the possibility. 

“You should stay put,” Damen suggested, doing nothing to hide the smirk of his voice as he lifted up, just barely. 

Almost on a whim, he lifted his hand away from Laurent’s inner thigh and brought it back on his cheeks with a firm slap. Then another, before Laurent’s breath could properly catch. And another, just for good measure. 

“Ah! What…?” Laurent failed to formulate a question around a moan, and being the first to be so bold to do this to him was definitely its own prize. 

“Stay put,” Damen repeated, and then bent down again, open-mouthed against Laurent’s ass.

He licked at him just as shamelessly as he spanked him — only a few slaps at the time, if Laurent was failing to let him have his way with his tongue, or if Damen wanted to encourage him to soften up. 

By the time Damen was licking him deep enough to feel Laurent clenching, Laurent’s ass was also an alluring shade of pink. Laurent’s fingers digged desperately at every point of contact he had with Damen, without trying to push him away or closer. 

“Feels good?” Damen’s own voice rasped in his throat as he lifted up again, relishing in the slick sound and in the fluttering of Laurent’s hole.

“ _Yes_...ah...please.”

Laurent’s shoulders trembled, needy, in the admission. He moaned high, again, when Damen slapped him once more as if providing a reward for the honesty. Laurent’s cheeks were warm against Damen’s face when he went to rim him some more, and his body was all a quivering tension as he tried his best to stay still and just take it.

“Damia...ah...Damianos,” Laurent moaned, pleading, as he tried and failed not to chase the stimulation. “I’m c...coming, please…”

Damen had no doubt about it, given the wet pressure of the tip of Laurent’s cock on the skin of his thigh. Still, he lifted up, not without a smirk for the outraged sound the loss stripped from Laurent’s throat. He would have spanked him again, if he didn’t suspect Laurent might end up tripping over the edge for it. 

“Why did you stop?” Laurent whined in protest, as Damen pressed against his back more fully, to keep him from rubbing himself to completion against his thigh. 

Damen reached behind himself to recover the little jar of ointment from his bedside table — one that Auguste had made sure was always replenished after each of his visits. He caressed the redness of Laurent’s ass, getting that soft sound out of his throat before slicking up his hand.

“Because I want to open you up more.”

Two fingers slid in easily, where Laurent was already wet and open, and the way Laurent flopped back down with a high-pitched sound was its own confirmation that this was not new for him. And Laurent was the one rocking back onto his hand when Damen failed to move right away — resisting the temptation of pushing a third finger in was impossible, even more so when Laurent stilled under the increased stretch, more careful but still shameless.

With a slither of wickedness, Damen spread and turned his fingers slowly, knowing full well that it would only be titillating at best. “Like this?” he still asked, as if he genuinely wanted to know.

“Deeper,” Laurent demanded, face pressed against the duvet and hair perfectly disheveled by Damen’s touch. “A bit...lower and...ha-harder... _Mh_!”

Damen did not even try to dissimulate his smirk. “Ah, _here_ , I see.”

Laurent’s shoulders jumped when Damen stopped to pretend he had to be guided around to find Laurent’s sweetest spot and just rubbed against it, nicely compliant with the requests. It was worth being so unbearably hard and with a half-asleep leg in order to be able to enjoy this.

“Ah…” Laurent’s fingers clawed in their grasp on Damen. “Ahhh!”

Laurent choked on his own moans as he came, sudden and intense. His insides were soft even as Laurent clenched and then relaxed in a shiver around Damen’s fingers, and it felt nothing less than an invitation. And if that hadn’t been, the way Laurent murmured in protest when Damen pulled his fingers out spoke for itself. Damen grasped on his knee again and made to turn him around once more.

“No, do it more,” Laurent mumbled, as if Damen was willfully ignoring his request for a second serving. True to his eagerness, when he flopped down his back, his cock was still stiff even though he was still catching his breath after coming all over Damen’s thigh. 

“You’re very demanding...for a pet,” Damen mused, his own cock desperately hard as he looked down at the picture Laurent painted, spread naked and aroused on his bed. 

He would have been an excellent pet, the types for which the Veretian court would go crazy and contract biddings could go on for _months_. But he wasn’t. Laurent was a prince, Auguste’s younger brother, going all flushed at the reminder of that little game they were playing before getting distracted.

The flush only deepened, a red that matched the one on his slapped buttocks, when Laurent’s eyes dropped between Damen’s legs. His chest rose and fell in a wavering sigh — Damen had no shortage of confidence in his body, but it was flattering nonetheless.

Kneeling between Laurent’s spread legs, Damen took another dollop of ointment and gripped at his own erection, slickening it up. Laurent swallowed tightly, blue eyes entranced and demands forgotten, but he seemed to remember about Damen’s previous invitations. His arms stretched towards Damen, hands landing on his thighs to caress upwards. There was something hesitant in his gestures, as if primed to get stopped in his tracks, but Damen was far from dissuading it — when Laurent’s fingers wrapped over Damen’s own grip, skittering over the wet tip of his cock, he hummed deep in his throat and rocked towards the touch. 

Laurent grew more confident, his hand properly around Damen’s cock when Damen let his own grip go. More confident and more teasing, apparently, given the maddening way he played with Damen’s foreskin — pushing it back and skittering around it. 

It took Damen just a minute to snap and drag Laurent closer by the hips. 

“I’m going to fuck you now,” he whispered, with the weight of Laurent’s thighs at the side of his hips. 

“ _Oh_...”

In a different mood, Damen would have asked Laurent what made him so surprised about it. But he had waited long enough, and Laurent’s hips canted up like an offering at the prospect, eyes sliding all too intently from Damen’s cock to his face — so Damen got to it, instead of conversing about it.

Sliding the tip inside was easy — Laurent was slicked up and deliciously giving — but Damen felt the clench around him almost immediately after. Staring up at him, Laurent was a bundle of nervous excitement, one that Damen was not unused to given the considerable grit of his cock. 

“Don’t tense up now,” Damen breathed out. “Not if you want me to give it to you.”

Damen reached with a hand away from Laurent’s hips as Laurent nodded, wordlessly. An encouraging fondle of his stiff nipple helped, as did the change of angle of bending over him. Damen’s cock got deeper inside — though definitely not all the way in — and the trembling of Laurent’s slack mouth was very far from a protest. 

As Damen started to rock back and forth, in and out, he could see the shiver that ran across Laurent’s body, and the goosebumps that followed.

“Ah...It feels good!” Laurent’s fingers digged at Damen’s right forearm, rubbing his own chest up into Damen’s palm. When Damen thrust again, his cock lodged in deeper. “Ah!”

“Yes, it does,” Damen groaned, picking up a pace a bit — to feel Laurent more and to see him dragging lightly on the bed underneath him, his stiff cock jumping on his stomach. “I can see it.”

With a sharp pull, Damen hoisted one of Laurent’s legs higher in the bent of his arm. The change of angle was just _divine_ , and Laurent wailed under him. It was all the encouragement Damen needed to keep going exactly as he was. 

Laurent’s foot twitched hectically on Damen’s shoulder, lacking any real leverage but still giving a clear pace of Laurent’s pleasure in counter to Damen’s steady thrusts. Damen craned his neck and kissed the side of Laurent’s ankle, with just enough hint of teeth to make Laurent spasm around his cock. 

“Don’t! Ah...ahhh...it tickles.”

Despite the half-hearted protests, Laurent didn’t really try to pull his leg away, so Damen just took it as a suggestion to give it to him harder.

It was then that Damen noticed it, in a rare occasion when finding a new way of teasing Laurent brought his attention away from the sprawl of him over the bed. Up close, Laurent’s ankles and calves were marked in red lines, as if reminiscent of pressure and friction. The pattern was too geometrical to just be ascribed to the friction of tight clothes, all straight loops and criss-crossing squares. They were flimsy, and the fair skin was absorbing the bruising with great care and no cuts. 

When Laurent wailed again, Damen looked down at him in yet another light. On a whim, he bent down — towering over him and pinning one of his wrists down on the mattress. 

Laurent choked on a profanity that Damen was pretty sure no teenage prince should ever soil his mouth with. But it was difficult to fault him, bent in an alluring arc and taking a good part of Damen’s cock in his tight hole. 

Damen thrust in again and Laurent orgasmed so hard that the splatter of come got to his chest. He whined, adorable and ecstatic, his eyes liquid as he looked up at Damen. 

Damen did not stop, could not stop — not with how tight and twitching Laurent’s hole got every time Damen rocked in again, not with Laurent’s cock still jumping on his stomach with every movement. He came deep inside Laurent and kissing the heavy breath out of his mouth was euphoric, not apologetic. 

Afterwards, Laurent was exhausted and oversensitive. Damen was all too happy to pamper him — cleaning the mess where Laurent was so wet and open, chasing the shivers with gentle kisses. 

It did not occur to Damen to question him, even though now that he knew what to look for there were other marks that jumped to his attention — on Laurent’s arms and at the sides of his chest. 

There was simply no appropriate way to ask a young new lover you thoroughly ravished about who had tied him up recently. 

Yet, the thought stayed with him, as if the memory of Laurent’s very vocal appreciation for Damen’s cock wasn’t already a sufficient distraction during long meetings and tedious diplomatic talks. 

Reviewing the facts at his disposal and paying more analytical attention to the court dynamics didn’t offer a lot of new insights. The needless and convoluted Veretian approach to social interactions obviously did not help, but Laurent seemed very careful to tread lightly among the many factions and frictions — Auguste was always more at the centre of attention, and was good at commanding it, and Laurent never overstepped his supporting role. There was no one Laurent appeared to particularly favour, but even his dislike for people slightly antagonistic of the royal family was never outright. 

Since Laurent was too young to have a Pet, it stood to reason he would not keep his liaisons out in the open. Even though the only rule that the Veretians truly seemed to care about was not mingling between males and females outside of marriage, the young prince could equally be an excitable teenager and wary of scandals. Damen was not going to be a hypocrite about it — not only because he benefited from Laurent’s lust himself, but also because Damen at his age had been way more outright about it — but still, he was curious. 

He considered, of course, asking Auguste.

Damen had long since suspected that Auguste had clued into Laurent’s interest for Damen — and actually, Damen himself might have taken much longer to notice if it weren’t for that glint of amusement in Auguste’s dark blue eyes from the very first time he had mentioned Laurent showing him around. There was also the possibility their little adventure did not go unnoticed, but Auguste was always infuriatingly attractive in his inscrutable attitude and he had tricked Damen into confessing more information than Auguste had actually been aware of before. It was a difficult table at which to gamble.

Any variation on the possible approaches just sounded ridiculous. _I fucked Laurent but do you know who else has the pleasure?_ Or, _I think someone is playing bondage with your little brother, whereas I only had sex with him, any comments?_ Or even more outrageous and exposing, _I love entertaining both of you in bed, please don’t be mad, but Laurent should not outsource the rope play, can we discuss this?_

So he didn’t discuss it, regardless of the suspicious pang of guilt about it when Auguste surprised him in the baths, not even a day later. 

“This whole inner Council deal dragged on for too long,” Auguste hissed while bending Damen over the edge of one of the pools. Damen’s self-consciousness about what exactly _happened_ as Auguste was distracted was likely the only thing that tainted the sentence with frustrated recognition — getting it hard and persistent from Auguste just reminded Damen how much he liked _both_ the Veretian princes. 

Complications would probably run deeper than Damen himself had calculated — or _not_ calculated — before sleeping with Laurent. Nikandros would positively skin him for this, if Damen made it out of this foreign visit without causing a scandalous diplomatic incident.

For all intents and purposes, that should have stopped him from letting Laurent drag him into a servant’s cupboard, some days later, but it didn’t. They made out with the passion of clandestine teenagers — even though Damen should be too old to feel this way — and when he couldn’t stand it anymore Damen pressed Laurent’s face against the wall before kneeling down behind him. As he rimmed Laurent mercilessly, a couple of things became quickly evident: Laurent whimpered very attractively when he was trying not to scream, and even though the signs of Damen’s spanking had subsided there were new fresh tracks of red across Laurent’s adorable thighs.

Damen made Laurent come on his tongue and then got himself off between his wet cheeks. Laurent held onto him as Damen rocked against him, with his arms raised above his head and looped around Damen’s neck. It was unbelievably sexy, and yet Damen’s mind kept wondering if Laurent would not prefer having his wrists bound while at it.

“I’m glad Laurent seems to have calmed down,” Auguste said the day right after, as they were putting their weapons down after sparring practice. “I was quite worried that he might have been getting a bit...too persistent, for your tastes.”

“Not at all, your brother is...a perfect young host.”

Auguste glanced at him sideways and smiled that cryptic, inconspicuously courteous smile. “I’m glad to hear that you’re getting along.”

Maybe even a couple of more weeks in the Veretian capital were going to be more difficult than what Damen had already imagined.

Following that line of thought, when Auguste asked Damen to join him in his chambers after dinner, sex wasn’t the only thing on Damen’s mind. It was a quiet night before another wave of dignitaries were due to arrive from the Veretian provinces, no important meetings due in the early morning and there would be some time to regroup and calm down if anything went south in a conversation. There would be no better time to broach the subject of them and of Laurent, even if Damen was still unsure on how to frame it without sounding like an idiot.

There was only one of Auguste’s personal guards around — Jord, if memory served Damen correctly — and he wasn’t even posted on Auguste’s door. Damen was greeted at the start of the corridor but not announced to Auguste’s quarters, which was not completely unusual at this point of his prolonged stay. It was usually a sign of Auguste feeling very sexually adventurous for the night, which was to say _a lot_ , given his Veretian standing. It might help Damen’s cause and not make a possible shouting match a court business, but it wasn’t too comforting of a thought. 

The entrance to Auguste’s quarters was dimly lit, and so were the day quarters that the Crown Prince often used for official audiences. Uncharacteristically, the personal studio also had candles only at its corners, as if it was left like this from the servants waiting idly for the Prince’s return — usually Auguste welcomed Damen either here or in the adjacent dressing room, but it was abundantly clear the only spot with more light was the bedroom, with warmer light filtering through the half opened separation doors. 

If the night truly would turn into a vicious argument, Damen suspected he would have a great deal of lost sex to mourn. Or so he considered, as he made to push the door, but stopped in his tracks as the new closeness brought him the sound of voices from the inside, as if someone was _already_ having an argument tonight.

“Getting frisky with my crew is not going to make you any good, princeling.”

“Me? With you and those animals? Never.”

“Did we comment already on what a poor liar you are? We already know you do plenty with _me_.” 

The swear word that followed lingered in Damen’s mind, somewhat odd. The whole conversation didn’t make any sense, in tone and content, but the voices sounded remarkably like Auguste and Laurent’s.

“You hiss like a kitten, you know I hear far worse under my docks, right? I just want to understand...do you just hope someone will set you free because you’re pretty?”

“What I hope is for your ship to sink with all your filthy crew.”

“And you in tow? That seems very bleak. Why let them touch you if that’s the case?”

“The thought alone disgusts me.”

It was Laurent and Auguste, but Damen’s Veretian must be less smooth than he thought because the argument was as dramatic as it was out of context. Still, he flattened his palm against the wood of the door and pushed it delicately forward, to give himself a better visual without storming in or announcing himself. It was probably not very courteous but the alternative was much more awkward. 

There was more light in the familiar arrangement of Auguste’s bedchambers, but not so much that shadows didn’t tremble around the room, somewhat alluring.

Auguste was the first figure that caught Damen’s eyes, sitting as he was at the edge of his own bed, close to the bedside table and a little triad of lit candles. There was something relaxed about him, and it wasn’t just the informal arrangement of his clothes — with just a shirt half out of his trousers, bare feet dangling towards the carpet around his bed. It was mostly the impact of the posture, lacking the usual military elegance in favour of a disinterested lassitude — the same a gambler in a public house would flaunt while luring people to a game. His long hair was also out of any braid or knot, flowing almost messily on his shoulders though the shine of it under the warm light of the flame was always aristocratic. 

That would not be so remarkable, in itself. But at the other corner of the bed there was Laurent.

Laurent was naked. The evidence of the fact was bold and uncompromising when placed in stark contrast with the blue fabric of the canopy curtains and the elegant green of Auguste’s bedsheets. The bed was already undone, and Laurent was naked and kneeling on the mattress — but not by choice. There were thick lines of dark rope crossing over Laurent’s chest, knotted on his sternum and opening up in a tantalising way around his nipples. His arms were held close to his side as the rope bound around his back, and Damen could only get a hint of his wrists being blocked behind his back. The bend of his thighs was forced by two firm loops — one keeping his ankles close to his buttocks, the other secured above and below the knees — and spreading his knees wide was probably the only way for Laurent to sit properly on his heels. 

Damen swallowed thickly, frozen in place by more than just confusion.

“It disgusts you up to the point when your body lets you, princeling.” Auguste’s tone was remarkably informal, almost vernacular, pitched in a particular way that Damen never heard from him before, not even in bed. “Should I just bring you out on the lower decks, as you are, and hear what my crew has to say directly?”

Laurent seemed to recoil at the thought, frowning with a spite that seemed uncharacteristic of his very attitude, even more so when directed to Auguste. “You’re the captain and you’re a brute, I’m sure your underlings would follow suit.”

The rebuttal was more careful than the previous scathing tones, and Auguste laughed in a sharp way that, once again, didn’t seem true to his character as Damen knew him. “Trust me when I say you don’t want to test this theory, though maybe you would finally appreciate the great care I had for you on this ship.” 

“I’ve been your captive for six months!” 

“And you should know you don’t lie to me. So, let’s try this again, did you or did you not have someone else _handle you_ , princeling?”

Auguste’s tone was derogatory in a theatrical way, and if there was something Damen was sure of is that he would never call his little brother _princeling_. But nothing of this scene echoed with something akin to reality. Nothing, apart from the rhetorical question that made Damen himself very self-conscious. Laurent too, for good measure, averted his gaze, lips bitten in embarrassment. 

“There might have been...someone, visiting.”

“Once?”

“...Twice.”

Auguste laughed again, as if the whole thing was hilarious in itself. And then he turned around, eyes locking onto Damen.

There was no casualness about the gesture — and it stood to reason, since Damen had been _summoned_ to his chambers. So whatever scheme Auguste had set up, it did include Damen’s presence. 

“That’s good to know, or I would have had to send _someone_ away,” Auguste said, still staring at Damen. “Do come in, Damen.”

As if moved by something other than himself, Damen stepped into the bedchambers, closing the doors behind him. 

Laurent’s head had whipped around to stare at him — looking a bit more like himself, in contrast with the banter he had with his brother just a second before — but his wide blue eyes weren’t shocked enough to avoid making Damen feel like he was the only one out of his depth here.

“You called him _tonight_?” Laurent whispered, glancing to Auguste, even though there was no way to make any exchange private. 

“Why wait?” Auguste smirked, staring at the both of them — his tone different as well, as if this exchange had no connection with what had been going on before. “But feel free to dismiss him, if you don’t want him here.”

Laurent had the nerve to flush at this, colour spreading on his cheeks and up his neck, as if the evidence that he wanted Damen around even with the effect of surprise was more embarrassing than the fact he was _bound on his brother’s bed_. 

“What is this?” Damen felt himself asking, almost dumbly. 

“The captain’s quarters of my ship, of course,” Auguste spread his arms easily, as if the gesture didn’t casually encompass Laurent, also.

“Your ship…”

“One of the many, of course, eight to be precise. But I’m the captain so they all answer to me, the Stealing Magpie.” In this, Auguste’s voice pitched lower and rougher again, as if to make a point.

Catapulted as he was into something that sounded like a world adjacent to the one he knew, Damen could only drag a hand through his hair, a futile attempt to stir the confusion away. “Like a pirate?” 

“Precisely. And I’m sure you’ve already met the bounty of my last conquest,” Auguste added, waving a hand distractedly towards Laurent — still naked, still bound, and still blushing when Damen cast him another vaguely disbelieving look. 

Damen turned towards Auguste again. “Is this a game?”

Auguste hummed with a little nod, more suggestive than it had rights to be. “One that Laurent and I have been playing for a long time.”

With a weary sigh, Damen left the proximity of the door and got closer to the bed — if only, he reasoned, to take this whole madness in more carefully. 

Auguste didn’t move an inch from his sprawl close to the bedside table, and Laurent could barely fidget through the constraints that kept him settled in a position he seemed way too used to. 

The Veretian inclination for _games_ was no news, but Damen must have severely underestimated the meaning of this proclivity if it involved having one’s teenage brother restrained and exposed, and said teenager’s cock being unapologetically half hard between his legs. 

Silencing the part of Damen’s mind that found all of this incredibly appealing was almost impossible. 

“And do you usually play this game...like this?” Damen asked, even though the whole conversation he had eavesdropped before was a disconcerting fit to the narrative.

“We like to be believable, don’t we, Laurent?” Auguste asked, all casual, and Laurent had the nerve to nod in his conflicting silence. “I’m a pirate captain and he’s my captive, at my mercy...what would you do in my place?”

The scenario sparked vividly in Damen’s mind. Considering what he had done with Laurent as a fellow prince, was it such a leap to strip him, and bind him, and keep him at his whims, if he were a pirate? Yet, it was an unfamiliar thought process, too convoluted in a way that he often reproached Auguste for. His lips pressed together, in silence, but Auguste still smiled, and Laurent stared at him with a sort of hopeful interest.

“That’s what I thought,” Auguste mused, as if Damen had replied plenty. “We were hoping you would join us...I’m in need of a Quartermaster of my ship, after all.”

Damen’s head spun with the possibilities, not because he actually grasped the story for which they needed a new character, but for the reality associated with it.

There had been someone playing bondage with Laurent, and that someone was so elusive because it was Auguste. Auguste might have something to do with how Laurent knew his pleasure in general. Auguste and Laurent wanted him to join _them_ — which felt weirdly different from being the lover of both, because they were _brothers_. 

The Royal preceptor of Ios once told Damen and Kastor that morality was as varied as a set of coloured glasses. Maybe Damen should have listened more carefully, for moments like this one, when his own metaphorical glass morphed and shifted. 

Auguste was still looking at him as if this, too, was a game — a game and a gamble, for which he held the winning cards. Laurent was more self-conscious, but in a way that didn’t seem to curb the excitement on his skin — akin to Damen’s own, so much more exposed by his nakedness.

Damen sat down on the bed. 

“What would you have me do…Captain?” he said, testing the words in his mouth, and the heat they spread all over his chest. 

Auguste’s triumphant smile was almost endearing to watch. “I have the feeling that you’ve already done _plenty_ ,” he drawled out, shuffling better on the bed to reach towards Laurent. “Hasn’t he, princeling?”

Laurent was deeply flushed and almost disoriented by something more than embarrassment, but he still bit his lips as if to regain a hold of himself. “Nothing new to you, you’re the same brand of animals.”

“Royals, so ungrateful,” Auguste rolled his eyes, with an irony that was not lost to Damen as he felt a smile crack his lips after so much tension. “You forget I’ve seen you, the other day, with different marks on your skin.” Auguste crawled close to Laurent, grasping his hips meaningfully and dragging him forcefully closer to the middle of the bed. Laurent looked in equal parts turned on and outraged. “Tell me, Damen, what did he do?”

Damen swallowed thickly, taking in the unmistakable way Laurent and Auguste looked at each other, sitting in each other's space even while one of them was bound and the other one was all but predatory. “He would not stay still.”

“And did it work? Slapping him?” Auguste’s low voice made it sound even more vulgar than the act itself. 

“I think it did.”

With no warning, Auguste lifted a hand and slapped it down on Laurent’s inner thigh. Laurent made a little outraged sound but his cock still jumped at the impact. “Like this?” 

Maybe Damen should have done it like that, also, but he hadn’t. “Not quite.”

“Like this, then.” Auguste leaned to the side and hit the flat of Laurent’s foot, where it laid exposed by his forced position kneeling on his heels. It did make an interesting sound, and Laurent squirmed a bit, sensitive.

Nevertheless, Damen could take the hint of teasing when he saw it. “No,” he said, shuffling sideways to get himself more space on the bed. “Like this.”

The slap Damen landed directly on Laurent’s buttock was as uncompromising as what he had given him a few nights ago, and yet it seemed to resonate harder. The sound of it resonated between the three of them, and Laurent’s moan mingled with it, before fading into silence.

“Interesting,” Auguste whispered.

Damen slapped down again, almost on the same spot, before he could help himself. Laurent’s skin was so white that it was already turning red, and it was impossible not to think of Auguste stripping him and finding him well spanked, maybe in these same chambers. 

“Ah!” Laurent canted forward with a whine, but Auguste grasped him by the hair, keeping his head up. 

There were layers of deception in the whole act that Damen could not even bring himself to analyse. The forcefulness of the gestures was all appearance, just like Damen had hit Laurent not to hurt him but to be _felt_. The two brothers looked at each other as if the spite was real, but there was an intimacy and a familiarity in the gestures that made Damen wonder about how, exactly, he was supposed to fit between them. 

“I’m glad you discovered discipline, maybe _we_ should apply it more often,” Auguste whispered, a good approximation of a threat — he glanced at Damen, conspiratory, as the plural slipped in with ease. “Why did he want you to be still, princeling?”

“Because I always prefer your filthy hands to stay off me,” Laurent hissed out. 

Auguste sighed, as if there was something repetitive and tedious about the whole thing, even though his eyes told a different story. He moved vaguely to the side, without subsiding his grip on Laurent’s nape. Then he pushed Laurent forward, with the same level of manhandling Damen had seen him apply just a bit earlier. 

Bound as he was, Laurent could not really exert any resistance. He could only topple forward, his face against the sheets and his legs sticking to the side in a wide spread, knees digging down on the mattress. The sentiment behind the heated way he cursed Auguste was a bit undermined by the way his cock dangled, hard, between his open legs. 

Exposed by the new position, the rope work on his back was yet another sign of the glorious theatrical nature of the situation. Laurent’s forearms were crossed over the arch of his back, tied against each other and then firmly looked on the double line that bound Laurent’s arms against his side. It was deliciously executed and definitely not something a captor would make for his captive — any struggle would have made it impossible, especially with the spotless symmetry of it all. The palms of Laurent’s hands were nicely pressed in the bent of his elbows, instead of trying to get away from the constriction. 

Damen loved it.

“We’ve been over this,” Auguste said, with a great display of patience even as he recovered an unmistakable jar of oil. “You answer my questions or I’ll _make_ you answer.”

When Laurent tried to thrash away, Auguste simply grasped the side of his hips and then guided Damen’s hand towards the space between Laurent’s shoulder blades. No further direction was needed. Damen knew he had to press down, and he knew what would happen with Laurent’s chest forcibly plastered against the sheets — Laurent’s back could barely arch but the constrictions around his thighs kept him into a delicate balance on his knees, his hips offered up and his legs spread wide around his body. 

“Damn you, he just wanted to touch me!” Laurent exhaled.

“Touch you how?” Auguste prompted, all of his fingers glistening with oil as he slid them across the crack of Laurent’s ass. 

“With his...just his mouth! Ah!” 

Laurent’s reply broke down as Auguste turned his hand, leveraging the flat of his thumb against the small of Laurent’s back. The slide of his middle finger inside Laurent was competent and effortless. When Damen managed to pry his eyes away from the spot, Auguste was staring back at him, heated, as if the confession was interesting in its own right — not just for the theatrical coercion of it.

“Oh, well, if it’s _just_ that,” Auguste mocked, and there was a little slick sound as his index finger thrust in alongside the middle one.

Damen knew how nimble and strong Auguste was with his hands, but having been fingered by him with the experience acquired from his little brother as a background was a completely different thought. And seeing it from the outside was different, too, even more so with Laurent’s back jumping under the pressure of his own hand that kept him in position. 

“And with fingers…” Laurent reluctantly admitted, through gritted teeth. He was flushed, and excited, shivering slightly at every smooth nudge he got inside. Auguste seemed to need no direction and no adjustment to touch him just right, exactly in a way that made Laurent’s toes curl, blatant with his feet suspended mid-air close to his thighs. 

The level of comfort and commitment the both of them seemed to have with the whole scene left a part of Damen — one of the few that wasn’t too engrossed in the sex — wondering how long have they been doing this, how many scenarios just like this they had without a third party to enhance it. He felt known, under the stare of Auguste’s dark blue eyes — as if they were asking him, _would you do it any differently?_ And no, Damen wouldn’t, not with an atmosphere like this and a captive like Laurent. 

“You were very thorough, Damen,” Auguste praised him, even though his smirk had a hint of danger. “Did he like it?”

“I didn’t!” Laurent blustered.

“He _did_ ,” Damen said.

Auguste laughed, more bold and open than Damen had ever heard him before, and gave Laurent a third finger for his troubles.

Laurent made a choked little sound, hips jumping up against the friction. “Qui...ah...quit it…”

No person Damen had ever slept with managed to be so blatantly eager while faking reluctance. It was intoxicating. 

“You see, princeling, he’s honest and doesn’t bother with trying to lie to me,” Auguste said, ignoring the protests and scissoring his fingers inside Laurent with an obscenely wet sound. “Anything else, Damen?”

Damen swallowed, lifting his eyes away from the side of Laurent, face flushed and cheek pressed against the bed by Damen’s own making. If possible, the intensity of Auguste’s stare made Damen even harder in his trousers.

“I made him come. And then I fucked him.”

Auguste got a bit stiff, making Laurent gasp as if the fingers inside him had pressed somewhere funny. Almost distractedly, he pressed a small apologetic circle with his thumb on the small of Laurent’s back, and then slid his hand away completely.

For a second, as Auguste regarded him more carefully, Damen feared he had said something wrong — something completely out of tune with their game or what the brothers wanted. Auguste looked at him up and down, as if assessing something in him, even though they’d seen each other in intimate settings before and nothing in Damen’s clothed form could be new to him. At the end, he just huffed, with a small wrinkle at the top of his nose.

“You’re a little harlot,” Auguste murmured, clearly addressing Laurent. With a swift move, he slapped Laurent’s cheeks twice — firm enough that the sound of it rang clear and Laurent convulsed a bit under the impact, moaning loudly. “Hush, now,” Auguste added, moving away and closing distance with Damen. “Go on and do it again.”

“Do it…?” Damen whispered, his head almost numb as Auguste’s hands reached for his trousers and pulled them off.

“Fuck him again.”

Newly exposed by Auguste’s hasty stripping, Damen’s cock was all too up for the challenge, even more so when Laurent whimpered almost brokenly as the direction that lingered between them.

“Don’t worry,” Auguste said to Laurent, nudging Damen in a sort of encouragement and dragging Laurent’s hair away from his flushed face — almost gently, more like himself. “I’ll hold you steady as Damen has his way with you.”

There was a heated friction in the way the two brothers regarded each other, for a moment, and it didn’t quite subside even when Laurent pressed his face against Auguste’s hand. In the wake of the low mumbling whine that followed, indiscernible in the slippery Veretian vowels, it dawned upon Damen that he might have had an exclusive opportunity that he hadn't anticipated. 

_I fucked him first._

The memory of Laurent’s surprise and delight in their first night together sparked in Damen’s mind. Having been the first dick that Laurent ever got, even more so amidst the unchallengeable dynamic he seemed to have with Auguste, only made Damen want to give it to him a second time.

“Ah!” Laurent choked a bit on his breath when Damen’s hands brushed against his feet. 

They dangled helplessly, bound firmly just under Laurent’s buttocks. Every time he shivered — like now, as Damen pressed his thumbs right in the arch — Laurent’s feet would be the most telling in their twitching. But exposed as Laurent was, reddened by spanking and glistening with oil, the little spasm of his hole was just as eager and evident.

“Come on.” Auguste’s voice was rough and almost vibrant. “Go ahead.” 

Not like Damen’s cock would have been able to wait any longer, regardless.

He slid his hands all the way to the bend of Laurent’s hips — grasping skin and rope alike. His cock dragged in the crack of Laurent’s ass a couple of times, and then the angle was perfect enough to just catch the wet rim of Laurent’s hole. Plunging into him, painfully hard as Damen was, made Damen’s skin tingle with relief. 

“AH!” Laurent almost jumped away from the penetration, sensitive as usual, only to be blocked by Auguste’s hand. 

“He’s so big, isn’t he?” Auguste commented, as Damen canted slowly back and forth from Laurent to slowly ease him onto his cock. “Don’t be difficult, princeling.”

The flutter of Laurent’s hole was as unmistakable as it was uncontrollable, his body giving in to get more than half of Damen’s cock inside as Laurent went silent and breathless. Damen almost regretted not having fucked him face down the first time as well — the pliable stretch of the rim around his cock was so obscene that Damen had a hard time prying his eyes away. When he did, he noticed that Auguste was staring exactly at the same spot as well.

All three of them were very still, for a moment. Laurent, taken and pinned, Damen, beyond full hardness, and Auguste, obsessively staring. 

Then Auguste’s hand slid along Laurent’s back, until he grasped at the crossing knots of the rope and jerked Laurent’s chest body up. Laurent’s face landed back down on Auguste’s lap, but there was less strain and the angle was different. Better. So much better that Damen could not help rocking back and forth a couple of times, luxuriating in it. 

Laurent’s fingers, twisted behind his back as they were, grasped at his own arms — it was a moment of silent delight. With the side of his face against the steady warmth of Auguste’s thigh, he seemed to exchange an unfocused look with his brother, teeth clattering slightly. Then Damen thrust in again and Laurent cracked into a moan so shamelessly high it was almost startling. 

Damen took it as the encouragement it was, holding Laurent’s hips exactly where he wanted them — needed them — and fucking him properly.

“Shhh.” Auguste grasped at Laurent’s chin, pressing a thumb against Laurent’s gaping lips. It made Laurent’s jaw rock at the rhythm that Damen was imposing. “My whole ship is going to hear you.”

Laurent let out a wet, twisted wail, right before Auguste slid a finger into his mouth. As he sucked, half biting, Damen’s eyes almost crossed at the heated and pulsing spasm of Laurent’s body around him. 

The orgasm that rocked through Laurent was almost an inevitable afterthought, made of fingers clawing along his own biceps and the wet dripping of his come close to Damen’s knees on the mattress. 

Stopping was impossible, but Damen still tried to slow down — even with his chest heaving and burning with lust — just to give Laurent some time to ride it through. Laurent’s expression was quite lost, even though there was something all too alluring in the abandon with which he let Auguste’s fingers slide against the roof of his mouth. 

Auguste, on the other hand, glanced at Damen with both eyebrows raised. “Are you done too?”

For a second, Damen was almost too distracted by the shiver of excitement in Auguste’s voice and the raging bulge in his trousers to reply. When he did, he only mustered a, “Hell, no…”

“Then keep it up.”

It was less an invitation and more a mindless command, given with the same tone Auguste had sometimes when addressing multiple tasks at once. Damen found it furiously arousing — and the fact that Auguste was undoing the laces of his own trousers definitely _did not_ help.

“For fuck’s sake…” Damen’s hissed, and started to move again through the aftershocks that ran along Laurent’s body.

Laurent was moaning softly at every move, any slide back and plunge forward, but his body felt much heavier and lax in Damen’s grip than before. A little hiccup on his wound up breathing appeared only when Auguste guided his turgid cock out of his breeches. It was hard and heavy as ever — maybe more — and Laurent’s head was so far up in Auguste’s lap that the length of it basically brushed on Laurent’s face with each of Damen’s thrust. 

“Look at you,” Auguste said, low and rough, as Laurent flared up in a new flush. “You’re loving it.”

If Damen’s blood hadn’t been completely in his cock, he would have an appreciation of how undone the both of them looked — how telling it was that their little theater had slipped out of their minds, almost. As it was, however, he could only give it to Laurent in steady thrusts and do his best not to lose grip or rhythm. 

It wasn’t easy. And he faltered when Auguste guided his cock closer to Laurent’s gaping mouth. Laurent’s lips were wet with spit and every movement Damen made made the tip of Auguste’s cock slide across them in an unspeakably filthy way. 

Laurent shivered in an excitement and shock, eyes glassy. Damen had the stark impression that this, too, was a first. And yet, as Auguste’s finger pressed on Laurent’s teeth to keep his mouth open, his tongue darted out and gave Augute’s cock a messy, circular lick. 

Damen’s vision swayed, and he could hear his own growling sound of excitement overlapping with Auguste’s. 

There was little finesse after that, as he fucked Laurent leisurely enough to make him moan against Auguste’s cock. He could only groan in assent when he heard Auguste’s murmur filth about how they were going to _teach Laurent how to do this_ , as if Auguste hadn’t taught Damen as well. 

If Damen had ever come harder than he did inside Laurent not even fifteen minutes later, he honestly could not remember it. He bent over Laurent’s back, overwhelmed by the sensation to the point that he almost lost his grip on Laurent’s hips — there might be bruises on Laurent’s skin by now, and even that was exciting to think of. Auguste’s grip on his nape was the only thing that stopped him from toppling over completely. Damen let himself be kissed as he shivered over the parallel — over Auguste holding him with one hand and Laurent with the other. 

When Damen finally got himself out of the wet mess he had made of Laurent it was because he couldn’t stand it anymore — spent and overly satisfied. 

Laurent was still shivering, little wheezy moans jumping along his tongue as he kept toying with the tip of Auguste’s cock, eyes downcast. He was so blatantly hard again that Damen was close to promising him he would give him another round in ten minutes — or less, if he kept looking that wanton. 

However, as he staggered down to lay on his back beside Laurent, Auguste sighed with a sound that was almost helpless, and gripped at the rope on Laurent’s back again, lifting him up without caring for the little confused noise that came out of Laurent’s mouth. 

“Hold him,” Auguste gritted out, depositing Laurent’s shoulders and head down onto Damen’s chest. 

Up close, Laurent was even more blatantly out of his mind with pleasure, and yet he seemed to be more reactive than Damen in his stupor when Auguste shuffled around them on the bed.

“Wait!” Laurent moaned, more overwhelmed than reluctant. “Oh... _oh_ , no, _wait_!”

Admittedly, with the tone of Laurent’s voice, Damen wouldn’t have waited either.

Auguste grasped directly at the ropes at the side of Laurent’s legs to prop his hips back up. He didn’t offer any further warning before sliding his dick inside Laurent. The subtle squelching sound that accompanied the movement suggested that he _didn’t have to_ — Laurent was open, wet and primed. Damen had done his best with it.

Damen wrapped a hand firmly around Laurent’s shoulders just in time for Auguste’s first thrust to rock all the way through Laurent’s body.

With his chin propped on Damen’s chest, Laurent’s wet lips trembled over a whine that ramped up to a wail.

“Ah..Ah!...A-Auguste!”

Auguste was fucking Laurent with the same abandon Damen had experienced once, on himself, after having teased an orgasm away from him for too long. He felt himself clenching even just witnessing it from the outside, now. Even more so because with Laurent sprawled over him every shiver and jerk that shook him reverberated directly onto Damen. 

“Good?” Auguste gritted out.

“Ah! Y...ah...ye…”

“Yes?”

“ _Yes_!”

The encouragement seemed to mostly feed Auguste’s ego — and Damen’s lust — given that every movement sent Laurent jumping more than the previous one. 

Damen kissed Laurent’s face, and his mouth, and for a brief moment Laurent managed to kiss him back with abandon — tongues twistings and teeth clattering — before Auguste fucked him into another spiral of pleasure again. 

“I’m c-coming,” Laurent confessed, staring at Damen with watering eyes that were all too alluring.

“Nice,” Damen’s voice felt rumbling over the pressure of Laurent on top of him. He stared at Auguste beyond Laurent’s shoulders and dragged a hand through Laurent’s hair — between a caress and a pull. “That’s nice, there you go.”

With nothing to muffle him this time, Laurent’s scream was tantalising enough to make Damen’s cock twitch — even more so when Auguste kept moving without slowing down and the scream devolved into a deliriously high-pitched noise.

Auguste was not far behind, apparently even more spurred on by the sight of Damen keeping Laurent in place for him and Laurent pressing his forehead in the bend of Damen’s neck. 

The way Auguste’s back arched, pushing his hips into a jerking standstill, made Damen wish he could look at them from another perspective — see how deep Auguste’s cock was inside Laurent, how messy the mingle of Auguste’s semen was with his own.

As it was, Damen had to content himself with the feverish heat of Laurent’s breath against his collarbones, and with the way Auguste flopped down beside him, chest rising and falling with exertion. 

They breathed next to each other for some long seconds, trying to settle in their bones again, half-naked and completely spent as they were. 

Auguste reached out and turned Damen’s head around, at some point, leaning in to kiss him. When Laurent looked up, eyes all too intent on the proceedings as his nose brushed on Damen’s cheek, Auguste’s mouth slipped away from Damen and went to kiss him too.

Damen felt so in love with the both of them it made his head spin.

“I’ll untie you,” Auguste whispered, all up close and personal. “Just a second.”

“It’s fine,” Laurent sighed out, his weight dropped out completely on top of Damen. The tip of Laurent’s nose brushed against his brother’s, and then his lips pressed against Damen’s for good measure.

Hours later, even with his head on the pillows and a broad sheet to cover him, Damen still had Laurent’s body half on top of him — albeit free of ropes and nicely cleaned out — and Auguste’s head weighted down on his other shoulder. 

“You think your father is persuaded enough about the alliance?” Auguste whispered, careful not to wake Laurent, whose eyes were heavily lidded under the slow combing of Damen’s hand through his hair.

“He should be,” Damen answered, confident in his warm and fulfilled state. “And if he’s not, I’ll convince him.” 

Auguste huffed half a laughter but seemed deeply satisfied with himself and the whole arrangement. “You do that.”

Damen closed his eyes with a sigh, an arm firmly around Laurent’s waist and his hand still caressing Auguste’s head.

History suggested that the destiny of kingdoms had been decided on more whimsical foundations before.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The work will be de-anoned soon now that the Captive Prince Secret Santa 2020 is wrapping up with all content accounted for.
> 
> When it does, I'll update this note so you know where else to find me! Meanwhile, I would be happy to have your thoughts in the comment section! :D
> 
>  **Update 1:** Now that the de-anoning is done, remember that you can always find me on [My Tumblr](http://seekthemist.tumblr.com) (and also around the Capri discord servers)  
>  **Update 2:** Since it's not going to blatantly spot me anymore, I can finally tell you that a lot of this verse comes from a lengthy and shameless discussion with Momo (Linecrosser). So check out a lot of art from [over here](https://alinecrosser.wordpress.com/2020/12/20/taking-care-of-the-prince/2/), and [over here](https://alinecrosser.wordpress.com/2020/11/04/fingergames/2/), and [over here](https://alinecrosser.wordpress.com/2020/07/29/hot-summer-vibes/), for example. It will give you great visual for the fic! (Mind the explicit nature of the images ahead!!!)
> 
> Thank you for reading and for every nice comment!!! <333


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